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Lech Aleksander Kaczyński, (born June 18, 1949) is a Polish politician of the conservative pary 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.

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. Kaczyński was elected a Member of Parliament in June, 1989, and vice-chairman of Solidarity trade union (NSZZ Solidarność). He was a leader and founder of the centrist political party Porozumienie Centrum (Center Agreement) and 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.

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), claiming 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.

Lech Kaczyński as President of Warsaw established a historical commission in 2004 to estimate material losses that were inflicted upon the city by German authorities. The commission estimated the losses on at least 45.3 billion euros ($54 billion) in current value. The Deutsche Welle described presenting those findings as playing Anti-German card due to win voters for Kaczyński’s presidency, and 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." The view was contradicted 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 ).

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 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%. There were 159,897 invalid votes cast.

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 resentments towards Germany after satirical newspaper article

The left-wing German newspaper die tageszeitung (taz) criticized Lech Kaczyński by publishing a very satirical article on 26 June 2006. Mr. Kaczyński felt very offended by the blunt article, which led to serious diplomatic resentments towards Germany. He even called the article a "crime", while the Polish foreign minister Anna Fotyga compared the left-wing newspaper Die tageszeitung to the Nazi-propaganda paper Der Stürmer. Mr. Kaczyński demanded an apology from the German government as well as "actions against the taz newspaper", defying freedom of the press and freedom of speech. His reaction did remind of similar reactions by various Muslim groups during the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy.

References

1. http://www.taz.de/pt/2006/06/26/a0248.1/text
2. http://www.sueddeutsche.de/,polm1/ausland/artikel/985/79906/
3. http://www.orf.at/?href=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.orf.at%2Fticker%2F223789.html
4. http://www.spiegel.de/politik/debatte/0,1518,426159,00.html

See also

• President of Warsaw
• Politics of Poland
• List of political parties in Poland
• List of politicians in Poland
• Polish presidential election, 2005

External links

• President of The Republic of Poland - official site (in Polish and English).
• Strong and Moral State: Lech Kaczynski Speaks on His Presidential Plans
• Lech Kaczynski – The Head of the Capital Ready to Head the State
• The Times: New Polish leader finds demons lurking at home and abroad
• The Economist: Twins together, Poles apart

v t e Heads of state of Poland
Kingdom of Poland (1917–1918)	Provisional Council Regency Council
Republic of Poland (1918–1939)	Józef Piłsudski Gabriel Narutowicz Maciej Rataj* Stanisław Wojciechowski Maciej Rataj* Ignacy Mościcki
Polish government-in-exile (1939–1990)	Władysław Raczkiewicz August Zaleski Stanisław Ostrowski Edward Raczyński Kazimierz Sabbat Ryszard Kaczorowski
Polish People's Republic (1944–1989)	Bolesław Bierut Franciszek Trąbalski* Władysław Kowalski* Bolesław Bierut Aleksander Zawadzki Edward Ochab Marian Spychalski Józef Cyrankiewicz Henryk Jabłoński Wojciech Jaruzelski
Republic of Poland (1990–present)	Wojciech Jaruzelski Lech Wałęsa Aleksander Kwaśniewski Lech Kaczyński Bronisław Komorowski* Bogdan Borusewicz* Grzegorz Schetyna* Bronisław Komorowski Andrzej Duda
*Acting

• 1949 births
• Living people
• People from Warsaw
• Presidents of Poland
• Current national leaders
• Polish politicians
• Mayors
• Polish child actors
• Roman Catholic politicians
• Identical twins
• Actor-politicians