Lech Wałęsa, the former Polish president and Solidarity trade union leader who played a leading role in the fall of Communism, is in hospital with an infection and will remain there for at least a week, his spokesman said on Monday.
Originally a shipyard electrician in the northern port city of Gdańsk, Wałęsa became a symbol of the historic changes that ended the Cold War, leading the Solidarity trade union movement which brought about the switch to a free-market economy in 1989.
Wałęsa posted a photo of himself lying in a hospital bed on Facebook on Sunday with a caption saying "It happens".
A spokesman for the 78-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate told Reuters Wałęsa had an infection and would stay in hospital this week, but declined to provide any more information.
Wałęsa went through a COVID infection in January. He has suffered from ill health in recent years and underwent a heart operation in 2021.
He served as president from 1990 to 1995, the first leader of post-Communist Poland.
In recent years he was a staunch critic of Poland's ruling nationalists, Law and Justice (PiS), who in turn have been deeply critical of the transition from Communism to a free-market economy that Wałęsa led.
Źródło: TVN24 News in English, Reuters
Źródło zdjęcia głównego: Facebook/Lech Wałęsa