WORLD : Walesa Calls on Rivals for Help
Lech Walesa said today that an emigre’s strong presidential bid was a “cold shower” for Solidarity and appealed to former rivals for help to defeat what he called this dangerous “third force.”
The outsider, businessman Stanislaw Tyminski, shocked reporters at a news conference by praising Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski’s 1981 decision to impose martial law to crush Solidarity. He said the country then was under “unusual danger” from within.
Walesa, who will face Tyminski in a runoff Dec. 9, met the press in a packed conference room in Gdansk and extended an olive branch to supporters of Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki, his vanquished rival within Solidarity who resigned Monday after coming in third in the balloting.
“We are doomed to be together. . . . We should pull this common Polish wagon together,” Walesa said.
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