Lech Kaczyński - new Polish President

Lech Aleksander Kaczyński was born on 18 June 1949 in Warsaw. Together with his twin brother Jarosław Kaczyński, he is a leader of Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (Law and Justice) party. Kaczyński has also been the acting Mayor of Warsaw since 2002. Kaczynski won just over 54 per cent of the votes against rival Donald Tusk's 46 per cent in the second round of the presidential elections on 24 October. Turnout was just under 51 per cent.

Kaczyński will be inaugurated in late December 2005.

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 is a graduate of law and administration at Warsaw University. In 1976 he received a PhD at Gdańsk University. He later assumed a professor position at Gdańsk University and Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw. He is married and has one daughter.

As children, the twin brothers Lech and Jarosław starred in a Polish 1962 movie 'The Two That Stole The Moon' ('O dwóch takich, co ukradli księżyc' in Polish) based on a popular children story by Kornel Makuszyński.

In the 1970s Lech Kaczyński was an activist of democratic anti-communist movement in Poland, and in August 1980 he became an adviser to the Strike Committee in Gdańsk Shipyard and the Solidarity movement. During the Martial Law period, introduced by the communists in December 1981, he was interned as an 'anti-socialist element'.

When the Solidarity movement was legalized once again in the late 1980s, Lech Kaczyński was an active adviser of Lech Wałęsa and his Citizens Committee Solidarity (Komitet Obywatelski Solidarność) in 1988. He was elected Member of Parliament in June 1989 and vice-chairman of Solidarity trade union (NSZZ Solidarność).

Kaczyński was a leader and founder of a 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 (Naczelna Izba Kontroli, NIK) from February 1992-May 1995 and later the Minister of Justice and Attorney General in Jerzy Buzek's government since June 2000 (dismissed in July 2001).

In 2001 he was the founder of Prawo i Sprawiedliwość party, and since 2002 he has been the mayor of Warsaw, the capital of Poland. As the mayor, he supported the construction of the Museum of Warsaw Uprising. He is also remembered for banning a gay movement parade (twice), a move that might have been unconstitutional.

On 19 March 2005, he formally declared his readiness to run for president in the upcoming elections.