Poland Electrician vs. Intellectual

By John Borrell/Vienna

As a study in contrasts, the two front runners in Poland's first-ever popular presidential election campaign could hardly be more sharply drawn. The gaunt, intellectual Tadeusz Mazowiecki moves slowly and speaks diffidently on weekends-only campaign swings that are wedged into his prime-ministerial schedule. The paunchy trade unionist Lech Walesa, on the other hand, blitzes the country with almost daily campaign meetings, haranguing opponents and sweet-talking supporters at every stop.

With only days to go before the vote on Nov. 25, Walesa's aggressive campaigning appears to be paying off. One opinion poll showed last week that the Nobel laureate, who trailed Mazowiecki by 5 points in mid-October, had moved ahead to take a 7-point lead. Poland's only bookmaker gave Walesa the edge, with odds of 11 to 10, in contrast to 4 to 1 for the Prime Minister.

But combined support for the other four presidential campaigners had also risen -- from 5% to 14% in less than a month -- and polls showed that nearly one-third of the electorate was undecided. "It is very difficult to predict the outcome," says Professor Adam Bromke of the Polish Academy of Sciences. "All that seems certain is that no candidate will get the 50% required for a first-round victory."

That will mean a second round of voting in December and a deepening of the rifts within Solidarity, the loose alliance of workers and intellectuals that last year brought four decades of Communist rule to an end. Parliamentary elections slated for early next year may formalize the movement's breakup, which began earlier this year when Walesa made clear his intention to oust General Wojciech Jaruzelski from the presidency.

That declaration pitted Walesa, 47, against Mazowiecki, 63, a former colleague, who urged gradual political and economic change and wanted to postpone the presidential campaign until 1991. Walesa accused the Mazowiecki government of dragging its feet on reform and of being too soft on former Communists, many of whom still occupy important positions. What will Walesa do if elected? "There will be a lot of improvisation," he says vaguely. "I'll travel around and check things."

Mazowiecki is cautioning his countrymen that economic experiments could bring disaster and warns that an anti-Communist witch-hunt could lead to civil war. His supporters portray Walesa as a potential dictator; Solidarity ideologue Adam Michnik, for instance, recently described him as "malicious, antagonistic and dangerous" and likely to create the first "Peronist-style" government in Eastern Europe. The Prime Minister's standing received a boost last week when German Chancellor Helmut Kohl unexpectedly agreed to a treaty confirming Poland's western border with Germany.

Walesa is trying to win the support of intellectuals, who bristle at his populist style, by meeting with them and urging them to give "a newcomer" a chance. He has even suggested that if elected he will ask Leszek Balcerowicz, the Finance Minister and architect of the austerity measures that are at the center of Poland's economic-reform plan, to be the next Prime Minister. Some Poles view that as a welcome promise of continuity in economic policy; others see it as proof that Walesa's campaign is inspired more by personal ambition than the desire to make significant changes in the Mazowiecki government's policies.