A shipyard worker from Gdańsk, he founded the independent trade union movement Solidarity after a wave of strikes in 1980. Further political agitation led to a total industrial stoppage along the Baltic seaboard, and the government under General Jaruzelski was forced to concede the right to organize themselves independently. In 1981 Solidarity was outlawed and Wałęsa imprisoned. Released in 1982, he forged close links with Pope John Paul II. In 1989 Solidarity was legalized, and in 1990 he was re‐elected its chairman. Increasingly on the right wing of the movement and with the full power of the Church behind him, he defeated Tadeusz Mazowiecki in the presidential election of November 1990. Throughout Wałęsa’s term of office, his governments grappled with the economic challenge of moving towards a free‐market economy. In December 1995, Wałęsa was defeated in presidential elections by the former communist Aleksander Kwasniewski. He retired from politics after the presidential elections of 2000, in which he was crushingly defeated.