Walesa Wades Back Into Polish Politics With Vote-Monitoring Plan
- Ex-president says post-Soviet democratic order being reversed
- Solidarity hero sets up panel to observe Polish elections
Lech Walesa
Photographer: Piotr Wittman/AFP via Getty Images
This article is for subscribers only.
Former Polish president and democracy icon Lech Walesa set up a committee to monitor elections and help a splintered opposition unite, taking a step back toward active politics.
Walesa, 74, said he believes Poland’s government is reversing the democratic order he helped create decades ago when his Solidarity union brokered the end of communist rule and set the country of 38 million on a path toward European Union and NATO membership. Poland’s current nationalist rulers have been accused by the EU of eroding the rule of law, raising the specter of unprecedented political sanctions as well as cuts in aid from the bloc.