Kaczynski Twins to Head Poland After Premier Resigns
July 8, 2006
The Law and Justice's (PiS) political committee nominated Marcinkiewicz as interim Warsaw mayor until November elections and proposed Jaroslaw Kaczynski as the new prime minister.
If Jaroslaw Kaczynski, 57, will take up the post of prime minister, he would be breaking a vow he made during his twin Lech's successful presidential election campaign last year.
"I announced before the elections that I would by no means be prime minister if my brother, Lech, was elected president," Jaroslaw Kaczynski told AFP news service on Oct. 30, a week after his brother scored a surprising win in the presidential election over Donald Tusk of the
liberal, business-friendly Civic Platform (PO) party.
Jaroslaw said then that neither the Polish people nor Poland's international partners would tolerate a fraternal double act in the two key posts of Polish politics.
Jaroslaw Kaczynski's nomination to the post of prime minister will have to be approved by parliament, in which his PiS party has formed a coalition with the far-right League of Polish Families (LPR) and the populist Samoobrona parties.
Popular, but controversial PM
Although a relative unknown at the time of his nomination in September, Marcinkiewicz's conservatism and ease in dealing with the media have won him strong backing from the Polish public. Recent surveys have shown around 70 percent of the public support him.
On Saturday, Polish newspapers blamed his departure on crumbling relations between him and his party leader.
"Relations between Marcinkiewicz and Jaroslaw Kaczynski have been constantly deteriorating," wrote liberal daily Rzeczpospolita. "In addition, the president (Lech Kaczynski) was putting pressure on his brother to replace Marcinkiewicz."
Economic turbulences ahead?
Gazeta Wyborcza speculated that Marcinkiewicz's departure "could cause economic turbulence in Poland", and financial analysts concurred.
"The resignation of Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, who was part of the liberal branch of PiS, is bad news for markets," financial analyst Jacek Wisniewski was quoted in Rzeczpospolita as saying. "On Monday, we can expect the zloty and bonds to depreciate."