Poland's President Lech Walesa, the shipyard electrician who played an epic role in forcing the collapse of European communism, is now engaged in a brutal struggle to remain in power.
His adversaries are many: apparatchiks from the old order who won control of the government last year as "Social Democrats" eager to exploit economic unrest; former allies in the Solidarity movement alienated by his arbitrary ways, and managers of big enterprises who seem to flourish corruptly under communism or capitalism.
With such an array of enemies, Mr. Walesa's tactics are to play for popular support in the run-up to November's presidential elections. So far he has failed utterly. But having led a workers' rebellion in Gdansk, formed the Solidarity movement and defied martial law from prison, he is not about to be intimidated by squabbling politicians in Warsaw.
By vowing to dissolve parliament, a move that drew counter-threats of impeachment, Mr. Walesa succeeded this week in pushing Prime Minister Waldemar Pawlak, leader of the Peasant Party, out of office. His preferred replacement would have been Aleksander Kwasniewski, head of the Democratic Left Alliance and his likely foe in November. Mr. Walesa is said to have wanted him thrust into office so he would be held responsible for Poland's troubles. Instead, the DLA ex-communists picked a lesser-light, Jozef Oleksy, as premier.
As president of Poland for five years, Mr. Walesa has a mixed record. He approved the "shock treatment" switch to capitalism early in this decade, a move that has led to impressive 5 percent yearly growth. But as part of his populist appeal, he also held back on selling the biggest state enterprises.
On the ideological front, Mr. Walesa has clashed with many of the intellectuals who made the Solidarity movement the vanguard of democratic revolution in Eastern Europe. They find him too nationalist, too dictatorial, too tied to the church. A whiff of anti-Semitism is seen in some of his behavior.
Nevertheless, neither Poland nor the democratic world would be well-served by Mr. Walesa's downfall. Compared to his apparent replacements, he is committed to economic reform and is stoutly against regression to quasi-communist rule.
The president also is identified with peaceful change. Warsaw will not be the scene of a Moscow-style shoot-out between the president and parliament. And Mr. Walesa, for all his faults, is still the butt of affectionate jokes as befits a leader whose grammar and speaking style offend the elite. A sense of humor will be a valuable asset as Poland enters a year of churning political turmoil.