NINE MONTHS after calling the idea unacceptable, Poland's ruling party on Saturday made the identical Kaczynski twins the most powerful men in the country, naming Jaroslaw Kaczynski as Prime Minister to serve alongside the President, Lech Kaczynski, his junior by 45 minutes.

The move is likely to send shivers through liberals, who have decried the Kaczynskis' plans for a "moral revolution" in Poland, along with their coalition with nationalists who deride homosexuals and populists who are hostile to the European Union.

"We decided to take the risk and have a Prime Minister and President who are brothers," said Mr. Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who will now be asked by his brother to form a new Cabinet.

The Law and Justice party nominated Mr. Jaroslaw Kaczynski after accepting the resignation of the incumbent Prime Minister, Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, who upset the twins recently by showing unexpected signs of political independence.

He was seen as the Kaczynskis' puppet when they appointed him last autumn, after Mr. Lech Kaczynski became President and Mr. Jaroslaw Kaczynski stepped into the shadows as party boss, saying that Poland and the world would not accept identical twins as the country's top leaders.

Mr. Marcinkiewicz was unhappy that they forged a coalition with the nationalist League of Polish Families and the populist Self Defence party, and when he defied them by appointing his own adviser as Finance Minister and holding unauthorised talks with the Civic Platform opposition party, the Kaczynskis are believed to have forced him out.

"Relations between Marcinkiewicz and Jaroslaw Kaczynski have been constantly deteriorating. What's more, the President was putting pressure on his brother to replace Marcinkiewicz," wrote Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita on Saturday. The Opposition bemoaned a Kaczynski double-act at the summit of Polish power.

"I am afraid that with Jaroslaw Kaczynski as a new Prime Minister, Poland will become more extreme, more anti-European, and a more xenophobic country," said senior Civic Platform member Bronislaw Komorowski.

The 57-year-old Kaczynskis came to power promising a "moral revolution" that would root out corruption in Polish politics, redistribute wealth, help Poland's poor and 18 per cent unemployed, and strengthen traditional values in a staunchly Catholic country.

But the portly twins — who are former child stars of the Polish cinema and Solidarity activists — irked critics at home and abroad by advocating the death penalty and criticising homosexuals, reinforcing an illiberal attitude earned by Mr. Lech Kaczynski when he banned two gay parades in Warsaw as the city's mayor and called the organisers "perverts."

The League of Polish Families has done little to burnish the Government's image, with one leading member reportedly calling for "gay pride" marchers to be attacked with truncheons.

Another caused uproar in the European Parliament last week by praising Spanish and Portuguese dictators General Francisco Franco and Antonio Salazar.

In a torrid week for Poland, President Lech Kaczynski provoked diplomatic mutterings by withdrawing at the last minute from a summit with his French and German counterparts, citing unspecified "digestive problems."

Polish media insisted, however, that he had actually thrown a tantrum over a German newspaper article about the Kaczynskis, headlined "Poland's New Potatoes," which claimed that Mr. Lech Kaczynski boasted of having "never extended even a fingernail towards a German politician" and of knowing nothing about the country beyond "the spittoon in the men's toilet at Frankfurt airport."

— © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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