Word: walesa
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...miracles is over, no one has told Lech Walesa. Poland's ruddy- cheeked hero of peasant origins rode to his nation's highest office last week by a 3-to-1 popular vote. For supporters, the former electrician's victory was -- well, electrifying. As they greeted the President-elect in Gdansk with sparklers and brass bands, Walesa took time to remind Poles of what heroic struggles can accomplish. Declared the country's first postcommunist choice as head of state: "Since we defeated the system without one gunshot or one drop of blood, we can dare to build a new system...
Havel's moral authority defused a crisis of faith in Slovakia, the country's rustic eastern wing. But his remedy -- asking for the temporary right to rule by fiat if necessary -- differed only in degree from Walesa's ideal of an almost mystically righteous ruler who, as Poland's new President put it, can take "an ax" to obstacles. And Slobodan Milosevic, the steely leader elected by Serbs, won by virtue of his frank jingoism...
Whether Milosevic manages to retain control in Serbia's parliament in upcoming elections may determine whether the Yugoslav federation shatters. With a governing bloc, he could more easily press territorial claims against Croatia and grudges against Slovenia. Disintegration was not Poland's problem, and Walesa, despite his affection for Poland's prewar dictator, Marshal Jozef Pilsudski, strikes few people as a Volk-glorifying Fuhrer. But in trouncing candidate-come-lately Stanislaw Tyminski, a returned emigre who offered a form of national salvation as easy as a drug trip, Walesa himself could not quite shake off charges of pandering to emotions...
...fear that Walesa might play the strongman led many of his old Solidarity comrades to turn against him. Even as they close ranks behind him to head off % a Tyminski victory, some are still wary. "Of all the postcommunist countries, Poland alone had a broad democratic movement like Solidarity, which we hoped would prepare us for any setbacks," says Bronislaw Geremek, once a close adviser to Walesa who later allied himself with Mazowiecki. "This election proves that Poland, like all the others, must confront the authoritarian temptation." Next week it must also confront the temptation to cast its fate with...
WORLD: In his bid for Poland's presidency, Lech Walesa faces a mysterious and surprisingly popular opponent...