From February to April 1989, he participated in the Polish Round Table Talks along with his brother. After Solidarity's victory in the 1989 Polish legislative election, Kaczyński became a senator and vice-chairman of the movement. Then in the 1991 Polish parliamentary election, he was elected into the Sejm as a non-party member. He was also the main adviser and supporter of Lech Wałęsa when the latter was elected President of Poland in December 1990. Wałęsa nominated Kaczyński to be the Security Minister in the Presidential Chancellery but fired him in 1992 due to a conflict concerning Jan Olszewski's government. In 2001, Kaczyński co-founded the Law and Justice party, after splitting from the Solidarity Electoral Action and the Christian National Union, along with his brother.[1][2] Kaczyński was the party's presidential candidate, during the 2005 Polish presidential election. In the first round of voting, Kaczyński received 33.1% of the valid votes. In the second round of voting, Kaczyński received 54.04% of the vote, defeating Donald Tusk, who received 45.96% of the vote. He was sworn in as president on 23 December 2005.
On 10 July 2006, Kaczyński appointed his brother as Prime Minister of Poland upon the resignation of Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, the brothers then became the first pair of brothers in the world to serve as president and Prime Minister of a country and the only twin brothers to do so, until 2007, when his brother lost the parliamentary election on 21 October 2007, finishing a distant second behind the conservative-liberal party Civic Platform. His brother was succeeded as prime minister by his former presidential rival Donald Tusk.[3]
Kaczyński was elected senator in the elections of June 1989 and became the vice-chairman of the Solidarity trade union.[9] In the 1991 parliamentary election, he was elected to the parliament as a non-party member. He was, however, supported by the electoral committee Center Civic Alliance, closely related but not identical to the political party Centre Agreement (Porozumienie Centrum) led by his brother. He was also the main adviser and supporter of Lech Wałęsa when the latter was elected President of Poland in December 1990. Wałęsa nominated Kaczyński to be the Security Minister in the Presidential Chancellery but fired him in 1992 due to a conflict concerning Jan Olszewski's government.[10]
In 2001 he founded the political party Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość – PiS), usually labelled 'conservative' by media, with his brother Jarosław. Lech Kaczyński was the president of the party between 2001 and 2003.[13]
Mayor of Warsaw
In 2002, Kaczyński was elected mayor of Warsaw in a landslide victory.[14] He started his term in office by declaring war on corruption. He strongly supported the construction of the Warsaw Uprising Museum and in 2004 appointed a historical panel to estimate material losses that were inflicted upon the city by the Germans in the Second World War (an estimated 85% of the city was destroyed in the Warsaw Uprising) as a direct response to heightened claims coming from German expellees from Poland. The panel estimated the losses to be at least 45.3 billion euros ($54 billion) in current value. He also supported the construction of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw and was one of the signatories of the agreement to finance the project using the city funds.[15]
Interference with LGBT events
Kaczyński banned the Warsaw gay pride parade twice in 2004 and again in 2005, locally known as the Parada Równości (the Equality Parade), telling protesters that "I respect your right to demonstrate as citizens, but not as homosexuals."[16] Additionally, he feared the parade would promote a "homosexual lifestyle" and complained that police did not use enough force in breaking it up by stating "Why was force not used to break up an illegal demonstration?".[17][18] Kaczyński referred to the organizers of the gay pride parades as "perverts".[19]
In 2005, Kaczyński allowed a counter-demonstration, the "Parade of Normality",[20] organized by the All-Polish Youth, a Catholic nationalist organization opposed to "liberalism, tolerance, and relativism."
Elected President of the Republic of Poland (he defeated the runner-up Donald Tusk by polling 8,257,468 votes, constituting 54.04 percent of the vote), Kaczyński assumed office on 23 December 2005, taking an oath before the National Assembly.
Domestic policy
Lech Kaczyński with U.S. President George W. Bush in 2007
In his first public speech as president-elect, Kaczyński said that his presidency would pursue the task of ameliorating the Republic, a process which he said would consist of "purging various pathologies from our life, most prominently crime [...], particularly criminal corruption – that entire, great rush to obtain unjust enrichment, a rush that is poisoning society, [and preventing the state from ensuring] elementary social security, health security, basic conditions for the development of the family [and] the security of commerce and the basic conditions for economic development.[24]
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 responsible for, or were affected by communist crimes in the People's Republic of Poland, fighting corruption, providing security in economy, and safety for development of family. Kaczyński also stated that he would seek to abolish economic inequalities between various regions of Poland. In his speech he also emphasized combining modernization with tradition and remembering the teachings of Pope John Paul II.
On 21 December 2008, Kaczyński became the first Polish head of state to visit a Polish synagogue and to attend religious services held there. His attendance coincided with the first night of Hanukkah.[25]
From 2005 to 2007, in accordance with article 133 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, Kaczyński pardoned 77 people and declined to pardon 550.
Foreign affairs
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (April 2009)
Meeting with his Lithuanian counterpart, Dalia Grybauskaitė, in Vilnius at the Presidential Palace, 8 April 2010. This was to be Kaczyński's last meeting with a fellow head of state.
In foreign policy, Kaczyński noted that many of Poland's problems were related to the lack of energy security and this issue would have to be resolved to protect Polish interests. Strengthening ties with the United States while continuing to develop relations within the European Union are two main goals of Polish foreign affairs, as well as improving relations with France and Germany despite several problems in relations with the latter.
Aside from those issues, his immediate goals were to develop a tangible strategic partnership with Ukraine and greater co-operation with the Baltic states, Azerbaijan and Georgia.
He was greatly admired in Israel because he promoted educating Polish youth about the Holocaust. There was widespread grief in Israel over his death.[29]
In November 2006 in Helsinki, at a European Union-Russia meeting, Poland vetoed the launch of EU-Russia partnership talks due to a Russian ban on Polish meat and plant products imports.[31]
Lech Kaczyński and president of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, 2008
As a reaction to claims by a German exile group Preussische Treuhand, which represents post-1945 German expellees from Eastern Europe, the Polish Foreign Minister Fotyga mistakenly threatened to reopen a 1990 Treaty fixing the Oder and Neisse rivers as the border between the two countries instead of the Neighborhood Treaty signed in the same year.[32][33]
Kaczyński with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris, 8 October 2007
Following the military conflict between Russia and Georgia in 2008, Kaczyński provided the website of the President of Poland for dissemination of information for blocked by the Russian Federation Georgian internet portals. In a speech during the Russian aggression against Georgia, Kaczyński predicted: "Today Georgia, tomorrow Ukraine, the Baltic States the day after tomorrow, and then perhaps the time will come for my country, Poland!"[34]
During a state visit to Serbia in 2009, Kaczyński said that the Polish government, on the basis of its constitutional competences, decided to recognize Kosovo and emphasized that he, as the President of the state, did not agree with that.[35]
Marriage and family
Kaczyński married economist Maria Kaczyńska in 1978.[36] They had one daughter, Marta Kaczyńska-Dubieniecka. His brother is Jarosław Kaczyński, the former Prime Minister of Poland.[37]
The wreckage of the Tu-154 at the scene of the crash
On 10 April 2010, a Tupolev Tu-154M plane was carrying Lech Kaczyński, his wife Maria Kaczyńska, and other members of a Polish delegation (top public and military figures) from Warsaw to commemorate the Katyn massacre. The plane crashed while approaching Smolensk Air Base in Russia. The governor of Smolensk Oblast confirmed to the Russia 24 news channel that there were no survivors.[38] 96 people were killed in the crash, including many of Poland's highest military and civilian leaders.[39][40]
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered a government commission to investigate the crash. Russia's Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, was placed in charge of the investigation.[41]
Russian politician Valeriya Novodvorskaya later claimed the Russian government had murdered Kaczyński.[42]
On 11 April 2010, President Kaczyński's body was returned to Poland,[43] where he and his wife lay in state at the Presidential Palace in Warsaw.[44] The state funeral was held in Kraków on 18 April 2010. After a Roman Catholic Mass at St. Mary's Basilica,[45] the presidential couple were laid to rest in a coffin, which was placed in the antechamber of the Crypt Under the Tower of Silver Bells beneath the Wawel Cathedral.[46][47][48] A significant number of foreign dignitaries were unable to attend the funeral as a result of air travel disruption in Europe following the eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland.[49]
In June 2016, the Polish government announced it would re-open the investigation into the Smolensk jet crash with plans to exhume and autopsy all 96 of the victims.[50] On 14 November 2016, the first of ten bodies, including Kaczyński's, were exhumed.[51] Kaczyński and his wife were reburied on 18 November 2016 after autopsies.[52]
By 1 June 2017, exhumations of 27 coffins had been completed and DNA tests confirmed that 24 of those coffins, Kaczyński's among them, showed evidence of mix-ups, including switched bodies, partial sets of remains and multiple remains in one grave.[53]
Honours and awards
The statue of Lech Kaczyński in Piłsudski Square, Warsaw
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