One to watch - 25/05/2009

Jaroslaw Walesa, Poland

By Fiachra Gibbons/RFI

He walks like his father, talks like his father - and he's even made an attempt at a gaucho-style moustache. But Jaroslaw Walesa, the son of the legendary Polish Solidarity leader Lech Walesa, could find himself on the opposite side of the barricades come polling day.

Walesa junior, who at 32 is already an MP and a rising star of the Christian Democrat Civic Platform, is running on their list in his hometown of Gdansk. Daddy Walesa, however, has thrown his lot in with Declan Ganley's new eurosceptic Libertas movement, which is hoping to harvest a large chunk of Polish notoriously reactionary Catholic vote.

He was even the star turn at Libertas's founding congress in Rome, where in the absence of the Pope himself, he gave his Ganley his personal benediction, declaring that he and his party had "all the ingredients to become a historic force for good in the world".

Although he won't be running for Libertas in Poland, he will throw his considerable weight behind their campaign. What Walesa's  son makes of this striking example of old fashioned values, family loyalty, we have yet to discover.

 

Other candidates to watch:

Geert Wilders

Rachida Dati

Guy Verhofstadt

Emmanuel Filiberto

Francis Lalanne

Elena Basescu

Dieudonné

Eva Joly

Marlène Guest

Niki Tzavela

 

Jaime Mayor Oreja

 

 

 


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