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Lech Kaczyński

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Lech Aleksander Kaczyńskiⓘ, (born June 18, 1949) is a Polish politician of the conservative party Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (PiS). He is the President of the Republic of Poland. Kaczyński served as President (Mayor) of Warsaw from 2002 until December 22, 2005, the day before he was inaugurated as President of Poland.

Lech Kaczyński
File:Lechkaszynskiprez.JPG
President of Poland
In office
December 23, 2005 – present
Preceded byAleksander Kwaśniewski
Personal details
BornJune 18, 1949
Warsaw, Poland
Political partynonpartisan (Law and Justice at the time of election)
SpouseMaria Kaczyńska

He is the twin brother of Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński. Lech can be distinguished from his brother by a mole on his left cheek.

Biography

The Kaczyński twins are sons of Rajmund (an engineer who served as a soldier of the Armia Krajowa in World War II and a veteran of the Warsaw Uprising) and Jadwiga (a philologist at the Polish Academy of Sciences). Lech and Jarosław were both born in Warsaw. As children the brothers starred in a Polish 1962 movie The Two That Stole The Moon (Polish title O dwóch takich, co ukradli księżyc) based on a popular children's story by Kornel Makuszyński.

Lech is a graduate of law and administration of Warsaw University. In 1976 he was awarded his PhD by Gdańsk University. He later assumed professorial positions at Gdańsk University and Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw. He is married and has one daughter.

In the 1970s Lech Kaczyński was an activist in the democratic anti-Communist movement in Poland. In August, 1980, he became an adviser to the strike committee in the Gdańsk Shipyard and the Solidarity movement. During the martial law introduced by the communists in December, 1981, he was interned as an anti-socialist element.

When Solidarity was legalized again in the late 1980s, Lech Kaczyński was an active adviser of Lech Wałęsa and his Citizens' Committee Solidarity (Komitet Obywatelski Solidarność;) in 1988. From February to April, 1989, he participated in Polish Round Table talks. Kaczyński was elected a senator in June, 1989, and vice-chairman of Solidarity trade union (NSZZ Solidarność). In 1991 Kaczyński was elected to the parliament as a non-party member. He was, however, supported by the electoral committee Porozumienie Obywatelskie Centrum [1] (Center Civic Alliance), closely related but not identical to the political party Porozumienie Centrum (Center Agreement) lead by his brother. He was also the main adviser and supporter of Lech Wałęsa when he was elected the President of Poland in December 1990. Wałęsa nominated Kaczyński to be the Security Minister in the Presidential Chancellery and fired him in 1993, due to a conflict concerning Jan Olszewski government [2]. According to Wałęsa, who recently attacked the Kaczyński brothers, a reason was that "they destroyed more than they built".[3] [4] Another motivation given by Wałęsa was Kaczyński's bent for conspiracy theories.[5]

Lech Kaczyński was the President of the Supreme Chamber of Control (Najwyższa Izba Kontroli, NIK) from February 1992 - May 1995 and later Minister of Justice and Attorney General in Jerzy Buzek's government between June, 2000, and his dismissal in July, 2001).

In 2001 he founded the Prawo i Sprawiedliwość party, and since 2002, Kaczyński was the mayor of Warsaw. As mayor, he supported the construction of the Museum of the Warsaw Uprising. He also banned a gay movement parade (in 2004 and 2005), stating the lack of necessary documentation by organisers as the reason; earlier he referred to security measures, an offence to public morals and coinciding with the unveiling of a monument of Bór-Komorowski). His opponents called that unconsitutional in 2004 and he had been repeatedly criticised by the Mazowieckie voivodeship (region), which officially supervises the Mayor of Warsaw.

As President of Warsaw, Lech Kaczyński established a historical commission in 2004 to estimate material losses that were inflicted upon the city by the Germans in the Second World War as a direct response to heightened claims coming from German expellees from Poland following the war. The commission estimated the losses on at least 45.3 billion euros ($54 billion) in current value. The Deutsche Welle and others described his presention of the findings as anti-German card to win voters for Kaczyński’s presidency. Deutsche Welle quoted political analyst Stanislaw Mocek of the Polish Academy of Sciences who in his critique of various elements of Kaczyński’s campaign described the timing of the investigation of war time losses of Warsaw as an attempt to "win over older voters who still vividly remember the war." That view was protested against by Kaczyński, who replied: "Work on this report was begun in May 2004; it is not linked in any way whatsoever to the electoral calendar." (see [6]).

On March 19, 2005, he formally declared his intention to run for president in the October 2005 election.

Presidential election result

In the first round of the presidential elections on October 9, 2005, Donald Tusk of the center-right Citizens' Platform (PO) won 36.33% of the vote while Kaczyński gained 33.1%. The ballot was therefore inconclusive, as neither candidate won the required 50% plus one vote. In the presidential run-off on October 23, 2005 Kaczyński won 8,257,468 votes, (54.04% of the votes cast) whereas Tusk, won 7,022,319 votes (45.96%). In the election 30,279,209 Poles were eligible to vote, 15,439,684 voters took part in the election, which means the voter turnout was at 50.99%. The number of invalid votes was 159,897.

Lech Kaczyński received official notification of his victory at 2:12 p.m. on October 24.

Main goals of presidency

In his first public speech as president-elect, Kaczyński said his presidency would have two fundamental tasks: first, to reduce what he called "the pathological phenomena that are admittedly common around Europe and the world, but in Poland they're at dangerous levels"; and second, to reach national agreement and "bridging gaps that we've seen growing in the past 15 years."

Kaczyński later told reporters he would visit the United States in early 2006. After a brief telephone conversation with U.S. President George W. Bush, Kaczyński said he would strengthen Poland's ties with the United States. In a television interview he confirmed that under certain conditions, Polish troops could continue their stabilization mission in Iraq beyond the current timetable.

During his inauguration he stated several goals he would pursue during his presidency. Among those concerning internal affairs were: increasing social solidarity in Poland, bringing justice to those who were involved in communist crimes, fighting corruption, providing security in economy, and safety for development of family. Kaczyński also stated that he would seek to abolish differences between regions. In his speech he also put emphasis on combining modernisation with tradition and remembering the teachings of Pope John Paul II.

In foreign affairs President Kaczyński noted that many of Poland's problems were involved with lack of energy security and this issue would have to be resolved in order to protect Polish interest. Strengthening ties with USA while continuing to develop relations within EU are two main goals of Polish foreign affairs while at the same time improving relations with France and Germany would also be sought, despite several problems in relations with Germany. Outside those issues the main tasks would be developing a visible shape of strategic partnership with Ukraine and greater cooperation with Baltic states.

Diplomatic row with Germany

On 26 June 2006, the German left-wing newspaper die tageszeitung (taz) published a satirical article about Lech Kaczyński, entitled Poland's new potato.[1] The writing formed part of a series of satirical characterisations of politicians titled Villains who want to rule the world. Previous subjects of the series included, among others, the dictators Saddam Hussein (before being toppled in 2003)[2] and Alexander Lukashenko[3], as well as German politicians such as Ulla Schmidt[4] and Sigmar Gabriel.[5] The article lampooned, among other things, the Kaczyński brothers' perceived xenophobic, homophobic and authoritarian stance:

Now Parliament is to rubber-stamp more than a hundred laws without irritating the government's glorious nose with any criticism. The Kaczyńskis' role model is Josef Pilsudski, the inventor of the Poland of 1919, who in 1926 came up with "guided democracy" and greased the path of the semi-fascist military regime of 1935. Like Pilsudski, the Kaczyńskis are Poles up to their ears, and the Fatherland fits them like a glove. Both have proved that they are clean fore and aft: Lech, who has on several occasion prohibited public buttocks on the men of Warsaw, and even more so Jaroslav, who's living with his own mother – but at least without a marriage certificate.[6]

The Polish government soon expressed its strong disapproval:

  • Lech Kaczyński called the article "disgusting and mean" and on July 21, 2006, he said that that he knew of no comparable attacks against politicians and their families.[7]
  • His brother Jaroslav declared that "an insult to a head of state is a crime and there must be consequences."
  • Foreign Minister Anna Fotyga said that "such a collection of disgusting remarks is reminiscent of the language of the Stürmer", a Nazi propaganda paper.[8]

Lech Kaczyński then demanded an apology from the German government, triggering a diplomatic row with Germany that the German press dubbed the "Potato War". He also cancelled the Weimar Triangle summit with German Chancellor Merkel and French President Chirac, stating that he had stomach problems.[9] After Polish and German media speculated that the taz article was the real reason of the cancellation, Kaczyński stated that making a connection to the article was unfair and that the meeting was actually cancelled by his European partners who did not accept the choice of Prime Minister Marcinkiewicz as the Polish representative. [10]

On their part, German officials have declined to comment or to take any actions on grounds of the freedom of the press, while (according to newspaper reports) privately describing the row as "risible" and "unworthy" of a European Union member state.[11] The Kaczyński twins were also criticized by their political opponents in Poland, including former president Lech Wałęsa, who called them "humans without the necessary format".[12] A different point of view putting the President's exagerated reaction in a wider context can be found in German press "The next Pole-joke is sure to come, but perhaps German comedians should consider somewhat more exactly before they start to scoff at a country that they do not know". [13]

On July 12, 2006 Angela Merkel and Jarosław Kaczyński, the new Polish Prime Minister, declared a close German-Polish co-operation. [14]

References

 
Wikiquote has quotations related to Lech Kaczyński.
  1. ^ Template:De icon Peter Köhler (June 20, 2006). "Polens neue Kartoffel". die tageszeitung. p. 20.
    Template:Pl icon Peter Köhler. "Młody polski kartofel (Nowy kartofel w Polsce)". Retrieved 2006-07-16.
  2. ^ Template:De icon Peter Köhler (February 2, 2003). "Er wollte Balletttänzer werden". die tageszeitung. p. 32.
  3. ^ Template:De icon Peter Köhler (November 24, 2004). "Das Monster von Minsk". die tageszeitung. p. 20.
  4. ^ Template:De icon Peter Köhler (March 15, 2004). "Frau Doktor Honigkuchenpferd". die tageszeitung. p. 20.
  5. ^ Template:De icon Peter Köhler (January 21, 2003). "Der König der Kartoffeln". die tageszeitung. p. 20.
  6. ^ Author's translation.
  7. ^ Template:De icon "Polnische Staatsanwaltschaft ermittelt gegen "taz"". Spiegel Online. July 21, 2006.
  8. ^ Template:De icon http://www.sueddeutsche.de/,polm1/ausland/artikel/985/79906/
  9. ^ David Crossland (July 11, 2006). "Poland's Hypersensitive Twins". Spiegel Online.
  10. ^ Template:Pl icon "Możemy przegrać bitwę o Polskę". Retrieved June 24, 2006.
  11. ^ Tony Paterson (July 16, 2006). "Germany in hot water after labelling Polish leader a 'potato'". The Daily Telegraph.
  12. ^ Template:De icon "Walesa attackiert Kaczynski-Brüder". Spiegel Online.
  13. ^ Template:De icon "Der nächste Polenwitz kommt bestimmt".
    Template:Pl icon "Następny dowcip o Polsce pojawi się na pewno". Retrieved 2006-07-24.
  14. ^ "Merkel und Kaczynski wollen eng zusammenarbeiten". Spiegel Online.

See also

Preceded by President of Poland
2005–present 		Succeeded by
incumbent
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