WARSAW, July 4 (Reuters) - Jaroslaw Kaczynski is the candidate of Poland's right-wing main opposition party Law and Justice (PiS) in Sunday's presidential election.
He is also the identical twin of President Lech Kaczynski, whose death in a plane crash in Russia on April 10 precipitated the election.
In opinion polls, Kaczynski trailed his rival, Bronislaw Komorowski of the ruling centrist Civic Platform (PO) party, [ID:nLDE66304Y]. But Kaczynski performed better than expected in a first round of voting on June 20, lagging by only five percentage points.
Recent polls have suggested Kaczynski may be narrowing the gap further and he could yet win, just as his brother Lech unexpectedly overtook frontrunner Donald Tusk of PO in the 2005 presidential election. Tusk is now Poland’s prime minister.
Here are five facts about Jaroslaw Kaczynski.
* Kaczynski, 61, served as prime minister in 2006-2007 at the head of a fractious right-wing coalition that antagonised Poland’s business and political elites and strained ties with the European Union, Germany and Russia. PiS lost power to Donald Tusk’s more pragmatic PO in 2007.
* The Kaczynski twins, active in the pro-democracy Solidarity movement that toppled communism in 1989, set up PiS in 2001. The party is conservative on social and moral issues but left-leaning on the economy, favouring more state spending and opposing privatisation. PiS is sceptical about further European integration and opposes Poland’s early adoption of the euro. Jaroslaw Kaczynski keeps tight control of his party.
* PiS won a 2005 election on promises of cleaning up politics after a spate of corruption scandals, and coming to terms with Poland’s communist past. Critics accused the Kaczynskis of conducting witch-hunts against political rivals. Since the April 10 crash, Jaroslaw Kaczynski has toned down his acerbic rhetoric in an attempt to win over middle-of-the-road voters, calling for dialogue and cooperation with his rivals.
* Kaczynski came close to sabotaging German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s bid to seal a deal on a new EU treaty in 2007, invoking the number of Poles killed by the Nazis during World War Two to press Warsaw’s demand for greater voting rights.
* Kaczynski, who is unmarried, admitted while prime minister that he had never had a bank account and kept all his money in his mother’s account to avoid any accusations of financial impropriety. He opened an account after losing power to Tusk.
