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Oct. 9, 2006

EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT

Former Polish President Aleksander Kwaśniewski to visit U-M

DATE: 7:30 p.m. Oct. 25, 2006.

EVENT: Former Polish Republic President Aleksander Kwaśniewski, who led Poland through the crucial post communist years of 1995 to 2005, will visit the University of Michigan.

He will give a public lecture, "Democratic Revolutions, International Conflict, and Global Citizenship," at U-M's Rackham Auditorium and will also meet with students and faculty in various U-M schools and programs.

As president, Kwaśniewski, worked to get Poland admitted to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1999 and the European Union in 2004. A strong proponent of East European regional cooperation, he pushed for the admission of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia into the EU along with Poland, and played a key part in mediating the peaceful resolution of the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine in 2004.

Within Poland his greatest accomplishment was the adoption of a new national constitution in 1997. He was a popular leader, at one time earning an 80-percent approval rating. His stated goal was to be "the president of all Poles," and most opinion surveys towards the end of his time in office showed that he had indeed transcended his partisan affiliation in the eyes of most of his countrymen.

Kwaśniewski was born in Białogard, Poland on Nov. 15, 1954. He studied economics at Gdańsk University (1973-77), where he was head of the local chapter of the Socialist Union of Polish Students (SZSP). His burgeoning political career pulled him away from the university before his graduation, and in 1977 he joined the ruling Polish United Workers' Party and rose to become a member of the national committee of the SZSP.

He also worked as editor-in-chief of two party-affiliated youth magazines, ITD (1981-1984) and Sztandar Młodych(1984-1985), and as president of the Polish Olympic Committee from 1988-1991. His national political prominence was confirmed in 1985, when he was named Minister of Youth Affairs and Chairman of the Committee for Youth and Physical Culture.

In the late 1980s, Kwaśniewski was one of the leaders of a reformist faction within the government, and he played a major role in negotiating the famous "Round Table Accords" that led to the peaceful transfer of power to a Solidarity-led government in 1989.

A year later he was a co-founder of the Social Democratic Party, which was created after the dissolution of the old communist party, and in 1991 he helped organize the Democratic Left Alliance. During the early 1990s, Kwaśniewski led the effort to transform the image of his party, as he and his colleagues struggled to move beyond their communist past and refashion themselves as a modern, European social democratic organization.

His success in this effort was demonstrated in the elections of 1993, when his party emerged as the largest in the Polish parliament. In 1995 Kwaśniewski crowned his political rebirth by defeating the incumbent, Lech Wałęsa, to become president of Poland.

Since his retirement from office in 2005, Kwaśniewski has been in demand as a lecturer. During 2006-2007, he is a visiting faculty member at Georgetown University.

PLACE: Rackham Auditorium, U-M central campus. For a map, visit: http://www.umich.edu/~info/maps.html

SPONSORS: U-M's Center for Russian and East European Studies, the Center for European Studies-European Union Center, and Office of the President.

CONTACT: Marysia Ostafin, (734) 764-0351.

WEB LINKS: For more on the Center for Russian and East European Studies, visit: www.umich.edu/~iinet/crees

For more on the Center for European Studies, visit: http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/ces/

For more on the U-M International Institute, visit: http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/

Contact: Joe Serwach
Phone: (734) 647-1844