Jarosław Kaczyński

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 to 1993 and since 1997, Kaczyński was a member of the Sejm.[3] In the same year, he worked under direction of the president of Poland, Lech Wałęsa, as the head of his presidential chancellery.[4] Wałęsa fired Kaczyński, who then led the movement against him. During this time an effigy of Wałęsa was burned at a protest organized by Kaczyński.[5]

Kaczyński was the Law and Justice prime ministerial candidate in the September 2005 Polish parliamentary election.[6][7][8] 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. Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz was appointed prime minister.

In the following months, he was a frontbench MP and the leader of his party. He was said to have enormous influence on the prime minister's decision-making process. Kaczyński was described as the architect of the coalition with the populist Self-Defense of the Republic of Poland (Polish: Samoobrona) and the far-right League of Polish Families party.

Critics have accused the first PiS government of splitting the country over religious and cultural issues and picking "needless fights with Germany and the European Union".[9][10]

Following reports of a rift between Kaczyński and Marcinkiewicz, the latter resigned on 7 July 2006. Kaczyński was appointed prime minister by his brother, the president, Lech Kaczyński, on 10 July, and sworn in on 14 July, following the formation of a cabinet and a confidence vote in the Sejm.[11][12][13] They were the first pair of brothers in the world to serve as president and prime minister of a country and the only twin brothers to have done so.[14]

At the request of his government, taxes were reduced. 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.[15] Kaczyński's government was criticised both domestically and abroad for poor foreign relationships with Germany and Russia.[16]

Despite gaining votes, Law and Justice lost the parliamentary election on 21 October 2007, finishing a distant second behind the pro-European Christian-democratic and conservative liberal party Civic Platform. Kaczyński was succeeded as prime minister by Donald Tusk, but remained chairman of Law and Justice and became leader of the opposition.

Following the death of his brother, Jarosław announced that he would run for president against Bronisław Komorowski in the election held on 20 June 2010.[17][18] Joanna Kluzik-Rostkowska ran his electoral campaign staff and the spokesperson was Paweł Poncyljusz. Kaczyński appeared to soften his image during the campaign in order to win centrist voters.[19] The campaign's motto was Poland Comes First.[20] He polled 36.5% of the vote in the first round, against the acting president Bronisław Komorowski's 41.5%. In the second round he lost with 47.0% of the votee to Komorowski's 53.0%.

Jarosław Kaczyński and Beata Szydło

In order to win over moderate voters, rather than running as PiS's candidate for president or prime minister, Kaczyński put forward more moderate PiS members in the 2015 presidential and parliamentary elections. Andrzej Duda ran as PiS's presidential candidate, while Beata Szydło was its candidate for prime minister.[21] PiS won both elections.[21] In the parliamentary election, PiS became the first party to win an outright majority since the end of communism.[22][23] But despite being a popular leader among PiS's base, he himself remains unpopular among the wider public, with some polls showing that more Poles think Kaczyński is not trustworthy compared to Duda or Szydło.[21]

In 2017, Politico described him as the de facto ruler of Poland and as one of the most influential politicians in Poland.[24][25] On 19 November 2017, Donald Tusk attacked Kaczyński's leadership by claiming it played into the Kremlin's hands and endangered the independence of Poland.[26]