Solidarity trade union now Lech-less

WARSAW - Polish Solidarity hero Lech Walesa said he had quit the trade union he founded and that helped bring about the collapse of communism in eastern Europe.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Walesa said he had opposed Solidarity's decision to support the Law and Justice Party in elections last year. Party leaders, twins Jaroslaw and Lech Kaczynski, are now Prime Minister and President of Poland respectively. "They [Solidarity] have backed the Kaczynskis too much. I don't want to be involved with that. It is no longer my Solidarity. Something is wrong with it."

Solidarity leaders said the former technician, who became postwar Poland's first freely elected President after the fall of communism, had not been a member of the movement since January because he had not paid his annual dues.

- REUTERS