Walesa Will Again Seek Presidency

Lech Walesa, the Nobel Prize-winning former union leader who helped topple communism in Poland and then served as this nation’s president, plunged back into politics Sunday by accepting his party’s nomination for another presidential run.

The blunt-spoken, charismatic but often abrasive Walesa is running against incumbent President Aleksander Kwasniewski, a former Communist, on the slogan “Black is black. White is white.” That is a reference, he said, to his view that the former Communists are getting away with blaming center-right politicians for economic pain that in reality stems from the Communist era, which ended in 1989.

“They admit to the fact that communism failed,” Walesa said. “If you admit that the system was a failure, then you should pay the bills.”

While recent polls show Walesa with only 4% support, none of the leading center-right candidates draws more than 10%. Kwasniewski, known for his ingratiating manner and smooth political skills, is riding high with about 70%.

Walesa--who led the 1980s workers movement known as Solidarity--became Poland’s president in 1990, then lost to Kwasniewski in 1995. In that race, Walesa had only 7% support seven months before the vote yet nearly snagged a comeback victory, losing 52% to 48%.

Kwasniewski is now generally seen as a supporter of democracy and capitalism while still on the left in terms of social issues and government spending. Most analysts view him as unbeatable in the Oct. 8 balloting. Some, however, think he might be forced into a runoff, which will be required if no candidate wins more than 50% of the votes in the first round.

The only hope for center-right candidates such as Walesa or independent liberal Andrzej Olechowski, a former foreign minister who has drawn 10% support in recent polls, would be if Kwasniewski was denied a first-round victory and everyone opposed to him then rallied around a single candidate.

But even under that scenario, victory by a center-right candidate would require a major shift in public sentiment. The other leading contender, Marian Krzaklewski of the ruling Solidarity Election Action bloc, is also at about 4% in the polls.

“Many people say that this election is already over, that there will be no second round, that Kwasniewski has already won,” Adam Liwochowski, an official of Walesa’s party, Christian Democracy of the Third Republic, said to Walesa in a speech at Sunday’s party congress. “I would just like to remind everyone that 20 years ago, nobody could imagine the end of communism. But you did it, and it can happen again.”

Walesa is framing his campaign as a moral crusade.

“There is no ‘lesser evil,’ ” he said in a brief interview Sunday. “There’s only good or evil.”

Poland’s presidency is a prestigious but only moderately powerful position, influential largely due to the president’s power to veto legislation. Kwasniewski owes his popularity in part to his use of the office in a generally nonabrasive way.

But Walesa charged that it is “simply too costly” for Poland to have a president who isn’t more active.

“He hasn’t done anything,” Walesa said. “He’s just occupying his position.”

In his acceptance speech, Walesa pledged to ensure that Poland takes a tough stance to win the best possible terms in negotiations on joining the European Union, a goal that Warsaw hopes to achieve in 2003 but that many observers say is unlikely before 2005.

“I will not allow Poland to join the European Union on her knees,” Walesa declared.

He also said the West should still offer the formerly Communist states of Eastern Europe aid in the form of a new “Marshall Plan,” like the original that rebuilt Western Europe after World War II.

In the case of Poland, he said, such aid should be used to build improved roads and railways that would enable it to benefit from its location as a crossroads between Germany and Russia. In Poland’s history, he noted, that geographical fact has often been “a curse.”