Defeated Walesa to Replace Leadership of his Party

Published: 11 October 2000 y., Wednesday
Lech Walesa has announced changes in his Christian Democracy of the Third Republic. The former president also intends to settle accounts with those people who - according to him – had been slandering him for the past 20 years. "In connection with such low support, I am entrusting the whole party to another leadership; you can't get anything more from the old one," Lech Walesa said in an interview for Radio Gdansk. Asked if he was taken aback by his election outcome he said: "Yes and no. This is how I was appraised but I don't think that what I was advocating was off the mark or untrue. But such are the ways of the world; life goes on." Walesa also explained what contributed to his election result. "It has been 20 years of a negative campaign against me. Almost every Pole got a leaflet with libels against me. Almost everyone heard about my activities as a collaborator [with the secret services], letters by [former friend and union activist Anna] Walentynowicz and even letters that I'm a Jew," the former president said. Walesa also appraised [Solidarity leader] Marian Krzaklewski's election outcome "Mr Krzaklewski is a weak leader; it's a disastrous result for him. It's the end of the AWS, whatever you say about this. You have to bring in order: political parties are there to rule and trade unions are there to defeat workers' rights. As long as it's going to be different, we'll always lose," Walesa says.
Šaltinis: BBC Monitoring
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