Word: kaczynski
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Turnout in Polish elections has been declining since the end of communism as voters have grown increasingly disillusioned with their politicians. On Sunday that disillusionment became a spur as hundreds of thousands of mainly younger voters turned out to repudiate the populist political style of Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, whose Law and Justice Party (PIS) was defeated after just two years in office. The turnout was especially high in larger cities such as Krakow, Gdansk and the capital Warsaw (where it reached 70%) and in the huge 1.2 million strong Polish diaspora in Britain and Ireland; it was correspondingly...
...Polish analysts say the vote represents an unexpectedly forceful rejection of Jaroslaw Kaczynski and the combative style he has brought to Polish politics over the past two years. Even parties that did not do well themselves, such as the left-wing alliance led by former President Aleksander Kwasniewski, which received 12% of the vote, welcomed the result. "I have good news: the [Kaczynskis' self-styled] 'Fourth Republic' has ended," Kwasniewski said after the vote. "The verdict is unquestionable...
...victory in Oct. 21 parliamentary elections, even though the last government it led collapsed just two months ago. The latest polls put the party a few points ahead of the opposition Civic Platform (PO), suggesting that it will again be charged with forming a governing coalition, with Jaroslaw Kaczynski in a prominent position; his brother's term as President does not expire until 2010. That may be a sobering prospect for Poland's E.U. partners, but the Kaczynskis don't answer to them at the polls. Speaking to reporters in Paris this week, Lech Kaczynski said: "Certain things that...
That mistrust provides fertile ground for the Kaczynski brothers' conspiracy-minded brand of politics. Founded in 2001, PIS promised to rid Poland of what it calls the uklad, a supposed cabal of former communist officials and businessmen who they claim have controlled the country since 1989. Radek Sikorski, a former PIS member and Defense Minister, says the Kaczynskis were elected in 2005 because "they reflected the public mood of disgust with the previous regime." They are clearly at pains to project a simple, clean-living image. Jaroslaw, the Prime Minister, lives with his mother and a cat and does...
...Kaczynskis have been merciless with their own critics. Even fellow PIS politicians have been sacked for disagreeing with the Prime Minister. When former Foreign Minister Bronislaw Geremek criticized a proposed law that would have required virtually all Polish professionals to declare whether or not they had collaborated with the communist secret police, Jaroslaw Kaczynski said he was sullying Poland's good name...