Walesa Offers To Form Coalition

Poland`s Jaruzelski Calls For Talks

August 16, 1989|By Paula Butturini, Chicago Tribune.

WARSAW — In a bid to solve Poland`s worsening government crisis, President Wojciech Jaruzelski on Tuesday called for an urgent meeting of the nation`s major political forces, and Solidarity leader Lech Walesa said he was ready to serve as prime minister ``if society wants it.``

Walesa, apparently trying to calm Soviet concern over the rapidly deteriorating political situation in Poland, also said Solidarity was prepared to form an opposition-led government that included Communist ministers in highly sensitive areas, such as defense and the interior. Solidarity has no intention of pulling Poland out of the Warsaw Pact military alliance, Walesa said.

Jaruzelski, expressing concern over ``the deepening instability of Poland`s political and economic situation,`` said a meeting of political leaders as soon as possible should seek ``rational solutions`` to the problems. The crisis erupted Monday when Prime Minister Czeslaw Kiszczak announced his intention to give up attempts to form a Communist-led government.

In a statement issued in Gdansk, the birthplace of Solidarity, Walesa said a non-Communist coalition was ``the only chance of changing the course of events that are dangerous for the country.`` He said the Solidarity leadership is ready for talks but warned Poland`s beleaguered Communist rulers, ``We will not allow a monopoly to be reborn.``

Later, Walesa told reporters he did not want to be prime minister and would prefer someone else to do the job. But he added, ``If society wants it, I must do it.``

In a front-page editorial in the Solidarity newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, union strategist Adam Michnik asserted that a Solidarity-led government

``would be a signal for Poland and the world that something has actually changed.``

Michnik wrote that the current crisis in Poland requires fundamental changes and a ``mature courage that creates hope. For that reason I believe Gen. Jaruzelski should entrust the mission of forming a government to Lech Walesa.``

Michnik`s arguments took on special significance because he and the leader of Solidarity`s parliamentary faction, Bronislaw Geremek, had just returned from Rome and talks with Polish-born Pope John Paul II, a supporter of Solidarity since its inception.

Jaruzelski, who declared martial law in 1981 in a vain attempt to crush Solidarity, the first independent labor union in the East bloc, also contacted Walesa through private channels Tuesday to request the meeting.

Walesa aide Krzystof Pusz said the meeting could take place as early as Wednesday.

Walesa and the Solidarity leadership have been fighting Kiszczak`s attempts to form a government since his election as prime minister Aug. 2. They also would oppose the successor he designated: Roman Malinowski, a loyal Communist ally who heads the traditionally subservient United Peasant Party. Malinowski, in East Germany most of Tuesday, has yet to say whether he would be interested in trying to form a government after the Communists failed.

Solidarity, hoping to block Kiszczak as prime minister, has been negotiating with Malinowski`s Peasant Party and with the tiny Democratic Party, trying to woo them away from their traditional Communist ally and join forces with the opposition.

Since the June national elections-when a genuine opposition entered parliament for the first time since the Communists came to power after World War II-both the Peasants and the Democrats have suddenly become crucial power brokers. Together they command 22 percent of the seats in the Sejm, or lower house of parliament. Without their support, neither the Communists, who have 38 percent, nor Solidarity, which has 35 percent, can command a majority.

The Democratic Party leadership issued a statement Tuesday supporting Walesa`s call for a non-Communist coalition that would include Solidarity, the Peasants and the Democrats. The Peasants, who remain sorely divided on the issue, were not expected to come to any conclusions before Wednesday.

The current depth of Poland`s economic crisis-which is raising fears of widespread worker unrest in the face of massive food price increases and runaway inflation-has caused many Peasant Party members to want to ditch the Communists and support Walesa.

``Social feelings can be calmed only by a prime minister who is from the ranks of the opposition or who is picked by the opposition,`` said Alexander Bentkowski, the Peasants` parliamentary floor leader.

Such talk clearly worries Communist Party leaders, both in Warsaw and in Moscow. The controlled Soviet press in recent days has launched attacks on Walesa for his refusal to join a Communist-led government.

At the same time, however, the current crisis is a good measure of how far Poland`s Communist Party has traveled down the road of reform preached by Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. Never before has a Communist prime minister in Eastern Europe been successfully opposed in his attempts to form a government.