Warsaw, Poland – They first became famous as 12-year- old identical twins, their tousled yellow hair falling over their foreheads, co-starring in a movie version of “The Two Who Stole the Moon,” a popular children’s story.
That was the beginning and the end of their cinematic careers, but brothers Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, now 56, have been co-starring in Polish politics for the last quarter century, never more than right now.
Lech Kaczynski, the mayor of Warsaw, is one of two leading candidates in Poland’s presidential election; the first round of voting is set for Oct. 9.
Jaroslaw Kaczynski is the leader of the Law and Justice Party, one of many to form in the 16 years since Poland threw off communist rule and became a democracy.
The party, much to the surprise of pollsters and analysts, and apparently even to the Kaczynski brothers themselves, came in first in parliamentary elections last week, which would make Jaroslaw the logical choice to be Poland’s next prime minister in whatever coalition government is formed.
The presidential race has bobbed in unexpected ways. Lech has closed some of the gap behind his main rival, and Jaroslaw, figuring that voters may not want twins to take the two top jobs in Poland, appears willing to sacrifice his opportunity to become prime minister to help get his brother elected.
One result of the parliamentary voting is clear: The electorate has repudiated the former communist officials who, under the umbrella of the Democratic Left Alliance, have dominated this country’s politics for much of the past decade.
Law and Justice and the Civic Platform received the most votes in the parliamentary elections.
Lech Kaczynski’s main opponent for president is Donald Tusk of the Civic Platform, who, like the Kaczynski brothers, has been a prominent figure in politics for 25 years. But unlike Kaczynski, Tusk is an unabashed proponent of what the Europeans call economic liberalism, favoring less regulation, lower taxes and greater reliance on the free market.
