Walesa Tosses Hat in Ring for President
WARSAW — Solidarity leader Lech Walesa said today that he will run for president of Poland, a job now held by the general who once imprisoned him and sought to crush his labor union under martial law.
Walesa said he hoped to speed the nation’s transition from communism to democracy.
“Today I made up my mind. I am putting forward for society’s approval my readiness to be a candidate for the post of president of the Polish Republic in popular elections,” Walesa said in a statement delivered from his desk at Solidarity headquarters in Gdansk.
“For me, it is a fulfillment of the pledge I made in August, 1980,” he said, referring to when he catapulted to worldwide fame by leading strikes that helped create the Eastern Bloc’s first independent trade union.
Post-Communist Poland’s first fully democratic presidential and parliamentary elections are expected as early as this fall and no later than spring.
Walesa has hinted at presidential intentions for nearly a year, saying he needs to take the post to spur political and economic reforms.
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