POLAND: Alexander Kwasniewski, Poland's president during a decade of difficult reform, speaks to Daniel McLaughlin as he steps down from office
Poland's President Alexander Kwasniewski steps down today after 10 years in office, having helped guide his nation through a tough decade of post-communist reform and into Nato, the European Union and a firm alliance with the United States.
As a rising star in a crumbling communist regime, Mr Kwasniewski watched Lech Walesa's Solidarity movement topple his allies. He then brokered a political truce between the sides, before finally winning the presidency from Mr Walesa to begin his own tenure.
Now, though his socialist party was mauled in recent elections, Mr Kwasniewski (51) will leave office as a widely respected statesman, a friend of the White House and with his domestic popularity intact despite backing the invasion of Iraq.
"A feature of my presidency was that I was able to minimise division, and build unity and community in a positive way," he said in Warsaw's presidential palace.
"I have made every effort to unite and not divide Poland - that was my task and my message." Only the late Pope John Paul and Lech Walesa loom larger over post-communist Poland than Kwasniewski, and he is very different from both: his year-round tan, sharp suit and sleek coiffure hint at a corporate style and reputation as a conciliator - a man willing do business with all sides.
After guiding Poland into the EU in May 2004, he assumed the lead role on the bloc's eastern flank, jousting with the Kremlin, building pressure on authoritarian Belarus and helping mediate a peaceful end to Ukraine's Orange Revolution last year.
"I don't want to say Kwasniewski is irreplaceable, but regionally it will be difficult to step into my shoes," he said of himself.
"I've served for a long time, I know most of the main players, I have been highly active, gained the trust of partners and am known as a fair broker and decent man."
As Europe's leading candidate to succeed Kofi Annan as United Nations secretary-general next year, that sounds like a compelling job application. Asian leaders insist it is their continent's turn, nearly 35 years after Burma's U Thant retired from the job, but eastern Europe counters that one of its own has never held the UN post.
"If the main players want to change something, they can offer a new way of working and organising, of refreshing people and the bureaucracy," said Mr Kwasniewski of the UN.
"In that case, they may not need a secretary-general who is a prestigious diplomat, but a politician with some experience and an individual approach to many issues. I am ready if someone wants to ask me about the job."
A problem for Mr Kwasniewski is the view of many nations, including permanent Security Council members Russia and China, that he is "Washington's man". Alongside Britain's Tony Blair, Mr Kwasniewski was President Bush's main European ally in the invasion of Iraq.
His international ambitions may also be hampered by suggestions that Poland hosted a secret CIA prison for US terror suspects. Mr Kwasniewski has categorically denied the existence of such prisons but admits that CIA-run planes may have landed at Polish airfields to refuel.
He also offers advice to his successor, Lech Kaczynski, who alarmed liberals at home and in Brussels by banning gay parades in Warsaw when he was the city's mayor and by backing the death penalty during his election campaign.
"It is especially the president who should think about the whole of Poland," said Mr Kwasniewski. "Even the small groups - whether they be homosexuals, national minorities or groups with different religious convictions."