Polish conservatives, identical twins Jaroslaw and Lech Kaczynski, may be at the end of their long quest for power as their Law and Justice Party won the most votes in Sunday's general election, with 90 percent counted.

Jaroslaw, a lawyer with conservative social values and a bent for clearing ex-Communists out of public life, emerged as Poland's prospective prime minister in the election.

His party enjoyed a slim edge over the market-oriented Civic Platform, according to preliminary results. Before the vote, the parties had pledged to govern together in a coalition no matter which came out stronger.

In his victory speech, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, 56, struck a tone familiar with his supporters, pledging to bring a moral renewal after four years of a government that has been run by ex-Communists and marred by scandal. He hailed his party's victory as "the beginning of the path toward repair, the path toward change."

Recent opinion polls also show his brother Lech within striking distance of a rival candidate ahead of presidential elections on October 9, raising the prospects of the twins as prime minister and president.

'The two who stole the moon'

Nicknamed "Kaczory" or "the ducks," the short, stout, and now greying twins won fame as children by starring as lovable scamps in a 1962 Polish movie called "The Two Who Stole The Moon."

A dissident and activist with the Solidarity movement, Jaroslaw was long an influential force behind the scenes.

As an adviser in the 1980s to the Solidarity trade union movement, Jaroslaw proposed Tadeusz Mazowiecki as Poland's first prime minister, after the Communists were voted out in the 1989 election.

He was also a strong supporter of the presidency of Solidarity founder Lech Walesa, who held the post in 1990-95. Walesa suffered a bitter defeat to ex-Communist Aleksander Kwasniewski.

Kaczynski was the head of Walesa's presidential office and, together with his brother, was a close associate to Walesa until the brothers fell out with him over political differences.

In 2001, after the ex-communists returned to power, the Kaczynski twins founded their Law and Justice Party on a programme to fight against corruption and the continued influence of ex-Communists in Polish public life. While Jaroslaw is the formal leader, Lech Kaczynski, the mayor of Warsaw, also plays a major role in party affairs.

Other leaders and analysts typically refer not to one or the other, but to "the Kaczynski brothers."
 
Jaroslaw sometimes speaks for both brothers, whose political orientation is almost as indistinguishable as their faces, provoking laughs with his usual speech-opener: "My brother and I think that ..."

Some political commentators have questioned whether the two men will be equal to the tasks ahead of them.

"The Kaczynskis are good at making symbolic gestures, but if one of them leads the government it may be a constant tug-of-war," sociologist Jacek Raciborski said.

With promises to uphold Catholic and family values and pledges to protect the welfare state, the brothers have courted both the ultra Catholic right and the traditional leftist electorate, for whom they had been hate figures for years.

Investors are worried that the Kaczynski brothers' mildly euro sceptic party may block Civic Platform's plans to quickly adopt the single European currency, although they are encouraged that both parties have vowed to introduce sweeping fiscal reforms.

(China Daily September 27, 2005)