Politics : An Outsider Shakes Up Race in Poland : Millionaire businessman bursts upon scene, challenging Walesa and Mazowiecki.

Just when it looked as though Lech Walesa was almost a shoo-in to win Poland’s presidency in Sunday’s first round of voting, along has come Stanislaw Tyminski, a Pole lately living in Toronto and Iquitos, Peru, to throw the outcome into doubt.

To the consternation of Walesa and his leading opponent, Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki--as well as of the whole Polish political Establishment--the 41-year-old businessman in the last week has burst virtually from nowhere to second place, behind Walesa, in public opinion polls.

The latest government poll, conducted last weekend, showed Walesa favored by 28% of the sample, with Tyminski the choice of 21% and Mazowiecki of 17%. The rest of the preferences were divided among minor candidates and about 12% who said they were undecided.

Tyminski, an utter unknown in Polish politics and an obscure figure even among the Polish emigre community in his home base of Toronto, has sold himself as a millionaire businessman whose initiative and commercial acumen are needed to lead Poland to economic success in the post-Communist era.

His program, however, is vague, and his facts are not always correct. An example is a charge he made this week that Mazowiecki had offered to sell off state-owned factories too cheaply, an assertion that the government quickly and effectively dismissed.

But at least part of Tyminski’s appeal is the fact that he’s an outsider, free from the baggage of Solidarity’s history and, in recent months, from its bitter internal fights.

These battles within Solidarity have split the liberal sector around Mazowiecki from the conservatives backing Walesa, who has charged Mazowiecki’s administration with moving too slowly to remove the old Communist bureaucrats out of posts in industry and government.

Tyminski seems unlikely to achieve final victory, most political analysts say, but his strong showing could scatter the vote sufficiently to deny Walesa the over-50% margin needed to win the presidency in the first round. If no one wins more than 50% Sunday, a runoff, pitting the two first-round leaders, will be held Dec. 9.

Diplomats estimate that as many as 40,000 Polish expatriates living in the United States may cast ballots for president Saturday at polls set up in Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, Los Angeles and other cities with significant Polish populations. These votes will be tallied with Sunday’s first-round ballots cast in Poland, but no expatriate voting will be allowed in any runoff.

Tyminski left Poland for Canada 21 years ago and spent nine years in Peru, where he owns a restaurant and a satellite television company. In Canada, he owns Transduction Ltd., a company based in Mississauga, a Toronto suburb, that produces “custom-design computer systems for industry.” Aides say his business assets are valued at about $5 million.

He has run an effective campaign, hiring workers to paper Warsaw with flyers announcing his campaign appearances. He has taken full-page advertisements in newspapers. In Kielce on Monday, he drew a crowd of 2,500, matching the turnout for Walesa in the same city two weeks earlier.

The political Establishment is appalled at the idea of a rank outsider drawing so well against such Solidarity heroes as Walesa and Mazowiecki.

Walesa has said it would be embarrassing to have to face Tyminski in a runoff. And the Solidarity newspaper, Gazeta Wyborca, solidly backing Mazowiecki, has said Poland would become “the laughingstock of Europe” if Tyminski should win.

Walesa and Tyminski have campaigned far more actively than Mazowiecki, who clearly does not enjoy pressing the flesh and asking for votes. Mazowiecki, although highly respected by Poles, may be damaged by the perception of many that his government has become stalled, however admirable its start may be along the road to economic reform.

For millions of Poles, reform is a rocky road and is likely to mean more uncertainty in the future as unemployment rises and incomes shrink.

In this atmosphere, Walesa’s campaign has added an element of divisiveness, typified by his references to the government as a “bunch of dimwits.”

The resulting voter disaffection, many believe, may be the primary explanation for Tyminski’s sudden rise in the polls.