Quick Facts
Biography
Jarosław Aleksander Kaczyński (Polish pronunciation: [jaˈrɔswaf kaˈʈ͡ʂɨɲskʲi]; born 18 June 1949) is a Polish conservative politician and lawyer.
He cofounded in 2001 and currently chairs the right-wing Law and Justice party (PiS by its Polish acronym). Running for PiS, he served as Prime Minister of Poland from July 2006 to November 2007.
Kaczyński has a Doctor of Law degree. He is the identical twin brother of the late Polish President Lech Kaczyński. After the 2007 electoral defeat of PiS, Kaczyński was the leader of the main opposition party to Platforma Obywatelska's governments.
He ran against Bronisław Komorowski in the Polish presidential election on 20 June 2010, which was called following the death of Lech Kaczyński. Kaczyński announced his candidacy, replacing his recently deceased brother. He lost to then acting president Komorowski.
Despite formally not heading the PiS candidature for either, Kaczyński is widely considered the mastermind behind the PiS victories in both the 2015 presidential and 2015 parliamentary elections. Even though he does not serve as either prime minister or president, and is formally just one of the 460 MPs in the Polish parliament, he is seen by some as de facto leader and the most powerful man in Poland.
Kaczyński is considered one of the most influential leaders in European Union. In 2016, he was named no. 4 among 28 people who are shaping, shaking and stirring Europe according to Politico. In stark contrast with the one of other Polish cabinets, Kaczyński's political style has been typically uncompromising and so he is often labelled as a "divisive" or "polarizing" figure.
Personal life
Kaczyński is the identical twin brother of the late Polish President Lech Kaczyński. Jarosław and Lech were born in Warsaw.
The Kaczyński brothers 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).
As children, Jarosław and Lech Kaczyński starred in the 1962 Polish film The Two Who Stole the Moon (Polish: O dwóch takich, co ukradli księżyc), based on a popular children's story by Kornel Makuszyński.
Kaczyński resides in Warsaw. He is not married, but there were rumours about a close love relationship with one of his unmarried employees, MP Jolanta Szczypińska. He lived with his ailing mother until her hospitalization. Kaczyński owns no computer and is said to have opened his first bank account only in 2009.
In 2006 the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita reported on communist-era secret service files which documented a discussion on his sexuality. In the files, a former SB officer speculated on Kaczyński's sexual orientation. Relations between Lech Wałęsa and Kaczyński have for many years been strained drawing from their opposite stances regarding Poland's communist past: Wałęsa preferred to focus on the future and "allow the past to remain the past", while the Kaczyński brothers strived to destroy any remnant of the country's former communist networks. On top of that, Wałęsa cracked a joke about 'two brothers who arrive at a party – one with his wife and one with his "husband"'. He was alluding to Jarosław Kaczyński having a male sexual partner.
Early career
Jarosław Kaczyński was a graduate of law and administration of Warsaw University, which in 1976 awarded him a PhD in Law. In the 1980s, he became a member of the Solidarity trade union. Kaczyński was the executive editor of the Tygodnik Solidarność weekly in 1989–91.
In 1991, he created the centrist, Christian democratic Centre Agreement party and later became its chairman, remaining in the role until 1998. In the years 1991–93 and 1997–2005 Kaczyński was a member of the Polish Parliament (Sejm).
2005 elections
Kaczyński was the Law and Justice prime ministerial candidate in the September 2005 Polish parliamentary election. However, when the party emerged as winner of the election, he pledged that he would not take the position, expecting that his nomination would reduce the chances of his brother Lech Kaczyński, who was a candidate for the October presidential election.
Kaczyński was the architect of the coalition with the left wing populist Self-Defense of the Republic of Poland (Polish: Samoobrona) and the conservative Christian League of Polish Families party. Party-member Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz was appointed Prime Minister.
In the succeeding months, he was a frontbench MP and the leader of his party. Many also described Kaczyński as Poland's most influential politician. He was said to have enormous influence on the Prime Minister's decision-making process.
Critics accuse this first PiS term of allegedly splitting the country over religious and cultural issues and picking "needless fights with Germany and the European Union".
Prime Minister
Following reports of a rift between Kaczyński and Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, the latter tendered his resignation on 7 July 2006. Kaczyński was appointed prime minister by his brother, Lech Kaczyński, on 10 July, and sworn in on 14 July, following the formation of a cabinet and a confidence vote in the Sejm.
At the request of his government, Parliament lowered PIT and rent tax. Kaczyński controversially initiated a nationwide program (lustracja) which required thousands of public employees, teachers, and journalists to formally declare whether or not they had collaborated with the security services of the former communist regime. Kaczyński's government was criticized both at home and abroad for poor foreign relationships with Germany and Russia.
2007 parliamentary election
Despite gaining votes, Law and Justice lost the parliamentary election on 21 October 2007, finishing a distant second behind pro-European Christian-democratic and conservative liberal Civic Platform. Kaczyński was succeeded as prime minister by Donald Tusk (after which Kaczyński remained chairman of Law and Justice, becoming leader of the opposition).
2010 presidential election
Following the death of his brother, Lech Kaczyński, Jarosław announced that he would run for president against Bronisław Komorowski in the presidential elections held on 20 June 2010. Kaczyński was seen to have softened his image during the campaign, in order to win centrist voters. On 11 May 2010, he made a televised address to Russia, greeting his 'Russian friends' and praising the millions of Russians who died fighting in World War II. He got 36.46% of the votes in the first round, while acting president Bronisław Komorowski got 41.54%. He was defeated in the second round, getting 46.99% of the votes, while Komorowski got 53.01%, which made him the winner.
Return to power (2015– )
In order to win over moderates, rather than running himself for either election, Kaczyński put forward a more moderate PiS member, Andrzej Duda, as his party's candidate in the 2015 presidential election. For the 2015 parliamentary election PiS put forward another moderate, Beata Szydło, as its candidate for prime minister. The manoeuvres paid off, as PiS won both elections. In the case of the parliamentary election, PiS became the first party to win an outright majority since the fall of Communism. But despite being a very popular leader among PiS' most loyal base, he himself remains unpopular for the wider public, with some polls showing that more Poles think Kaczyński isn’t trustworthy compared to Duda or Szydło.
Currently, despite formally being just one of the 460 MPs in the Polish parliament's lower house (Sejm), Kaczyński is amongst the most influential politicians in Poland.
Political views
Despite sustained economic successes since the country turned into a Western-type democracy in 1990, many Poles remain critical of the current republic. The country's healthcare and pension systems are ailing and its former communist cadres and networks still pepper the ranks of management in major corporations.
In this regard, Kaczyński's project is said to consist of a "moral revolution" culminating in the creation of a “fourth republic” drawing a radical break from the compromises surrounding the fall of communism in Poland and reverting Poland back to its conservative, Catholic roots and away from a multi-cultural European mainstream. In April 2016, he stated that he saw the Szydło government as an "experiment" that he is actively monitoring.
Drawing from his strong, uncompromising views (specially regarding parts of the political, cultural and media elite, which he sees as remnants or heirs of the former communist networks) Kaczyński is often labelled as a "divisive" or "polarizing" figure. In particular, under his watch the PiS has been accused of clamping down on public broadcasters and the judiciary.