Old warhorse set for fresh challenge
POLAND: From his office overlooking the shipyards where his struggle for freedom began, Lech Walesa is plotting another resistance movement.
The figurehead of Solidarity is now white-haired but still instantly recognisable as the wiry electrician who led the fight against communism and earned a Nobel Peace Prize in 1983. Walesa, 73, said he would come out of political retirement to lead a million people through Warsaw against the Right-wing government.
He railed against the inaction of politicians who allowed the rise of ‘‘demagogues and populists’’ such as Marine Le Pen, Donald Trump and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, his Polish rival, and called for bolder measures to counteract them.
His immediate anger was directed at the ruling Law and Justice party, led by Kaczynski, 67, his former comrade in Solidarity. The government has passed a series of reforms and incurred a warning of EU sanctions after pushing through its own nominees for constitutional court judges.
‘‘They are destroying my victory,’’ said Walesa, who has spoken at 50 anti-government meetings in recent months. ’’I am trying to stand against them. Many people would like me to lead that fight but I do not really want to because I am old.’’
He viewed Brexit as a mistake and said he was certain Britain would rejoin the EU, acknowledging it badly needed reform. ’’Europe must reflect on your mistake of Brexit. We need structures like the EU and Nato, because we need ways to solve our problems.’’
He supports the campaign for a referendum on immediate elections in Poland before those scheduled for 2019.
‘‘Only a revolution can change it now but we do not want a revolution, we want to do it according to the law in a peaceful democratic way,’’ he said. ’’We have to wait for the election but how many things will they destroy before that? If we get [enough] signatures we will hold the referendum. They will not accept the result. Then I will get together at least a million people in Warsaw and we will ask them kindly to leave.’’
It remains to be seen if Walesa could command the mass appeal he had when 10 million people joined Solidarity in 1981. He was elected Poland’s first post-Cold War president in 1990 but was not re-elected in 1995 and received barely more than 1 per cent of the vote in 2000.
Documents discovered last year showed his signature on an agreement to become an informant in 1970 and receipts for payments. He has always denied collaboration and was cleared by a special court in 2000.
‘‘The communists fought with me by all means available,’’ he said. ‘‘The best idea was to suggest I was a secret service agent. There was no other way of winning. I could not be bought, I could not be frightened off. There is my version and there is the secret service version.
‘‘This secret service version is used by my former colleagues and friends.’’
Walesa has said he is unsure of how to counteract the populism he warned could destroy democracy. ‘‘You have to look for solutions on how to prevent people [lying] to the public’’ he said. ‘‘I do not know how to do it practically but we [must]. Otherwise they will destroy us.’’ – The Times