While his appeal was aimed at stirring the conscience of the West, Walesa also hoped to shore up his standing at home. Accused of harboring dictatorial ambitions during his 1990 drive for the presidency, he is now often dismissed as largely powerless. According to a recent public-opinion survey, only 20 percent of Poles believe that he still plays the role of an “arbiter” in the chaotic political marketplace; in another survey measuring support for Polish officials, a plurality rejected all the listed names. The last Communist president, Wojciech Jaruzelski, actually outscored Walesa. In an interview with NEWSWEEK, the onetime Solidarity firebrand portrayed himself as the victim of a broad disillusionment with politicians at a time of economic hardship. “For the good of democracy, we suffer losses-and I personally have suffered the greatest ones,” he said.
At least some of those wounds are selfinflicted. Since he first decided to run for the presidency, Walesa has quarreled with almost all of his former allies. “Walesa let himself be persuaded that a president can manage without his own political grouping, so he found himself in political isolation,” says Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who served as a top campaign strategist and later as chief of the presidential chancellery until the two men had an angry falling-out. This weakness began to show after last fall’s parliamentary elections, when Walesa was unable to resist pressure by Kaczynski and a right-wing coalition to name lawyer Jan Olszewski as the country’s third prime minister since the downfall of communism in 1989.
The Olszewski government has proceeded to question many of the free-market backed. It ignores his wishes on personnel matters. And its leaders speak disdainfully of his influence in a system where the presidency is largely undefined pending adoption of a new constitution. “The president would better display his extraordinary talents if he were confined by an ironclad framework of regulations,” says Zdzislaw Najder, a former Walesa aide who is now Olszewski’s chief adviser.
Frustrated by his diminishing authority, Walesa has talked publicly and privately about resigning. Most of his associates don’t take such declarations seriously. “Today that seems impossible,” says former prime minister Jan Krzysztof Bielecki. “Walesa is deeply committed to his role as the father of reform in Poland-and as a pioneer in this part of Europe” Walesa can take comfort in not being alone: Czechoslovakia’s Vaclav Havel has recently suffered similar rebuffs in Parliament. His country, too, suffers from postcommunist economic dislocation. But unlike Walesa, Havel has maintained consistently high poll ratings.
Many Polish politicians are somewhat mystified by Walesa’s continuing slide. During the end game of the communist era, he proved a more masterful politician than many of his best intellectual advisers. That makes them reluctant to count him out now. “You never know with him,” says Tadeusz Mazowiecki, a former prime minister defeated by Walesa for president. “His strength lies in political instinct-and that political instinct could still become active.” Walesa hints broadly that he expects the Olszewski government not to last long. This could allow him to re-emerge as a kingmaker in the next round. And he once again raises the possibility of ruling by decree (“I’m ready for that; I can do it”), although he says he wants to avoid such an outcome. But for a leader who vowed to wield an ax once he became president, it is painful to have to protest, as he did last week, that “I am not powerless.” It was a case of having to protest too much.
