Lech Kaczynski - was he a good leader?

Out of curiosity, how well was Lech Kaczynski received as President of Poland.And how well did he perform up until his death.

He was deeply proud of his country but his beliefs were deeply flawed. He was a good father and husband but he was a poor President.

He was openly bigotted and proud of his homophobic stance.
He has openly supported organisations who professed anti-semitic beliefs and that included forming a government with a party who had a neo-nazi wing.
He was a nationalist of the worst kind, so blind in his beliefs that he was willing to sacrifice the overall good of the country to persue his personal brand of nationalism.

Many of my professional Polish friends were deeply embarrassed over him, whereas he fed on the hopes from the less well off people from the villages and countryside citing traditional family values which of course was very popular but not realistic in an every changing modern Poland.

Personally I disliked the man for his narrow minded somewhat selfish stance on what he envisaged as a blueprint for Polish society, but these are personal points of views from an Englishman who has lived here for 13 years now. Maybe it would be better to listen to a Polish point of view, as coming from a Western society to live in Poland we sometimes are clouded by our expectations for our host country in what we used to except as the norm from our native country.

Agree with all of that.


That too, but I suspect we'll hear much more from people with Polish ancestors.

sure, he wasn't perfect - but contrary to our current authorities including current president he at least cared for Poland

Me too. Also worth mentioning that he was ridiculously petty - often vetoing things like professorial appointments. He more or less behaved exactly how the President shouldn't behave - his attempts to use every little bit of power he had was just sad.

About the only good thing from his record was his work with the Jewish commmunity - which was excellent. It will always be a mystery to me why he associated so much with dodgy right wing groups when he actually had such good personal relations with the Jewish - it could very well be that the often-mentioned allegation that Jarek was controlling him was true.


No doubt they'll soon tell us that Poland was wrong and that he was the best President ever.


You mean our President who was locked up for trying to fight for a free Poland, right?

Thank you,that was very insightful for me.His brother is somewhat of a crackpot from what I read on PF.Is he Still in Politics.Forgive my ignorance;But I'm trying to learn all I can about Poland.

he may have been locked up all he wanted - it doesn't matter - what matters is what he does now


because he worked for Poland not for Israel or Jewry - and in order to work for Poland he had to find compromise with those who wanted some compromise - and you know you can only go so far in compromise if you say PiS should have begged PO to join them in government

Regardless of how one assesses L.W.'s presidency, the undisptued fact remains that his victory and that of PiS in 2007 resulted in PO leaders going bonkers, foaming at the mouth and whipping themselves up into a hate campaign of unprecedented proportions. They were joined by post-communsits, the Michnik gang and others whose corruption and underhanded 'arrangements' (układy) were threatend by the PiS 4th Republic clean-up attempt,

Nice way of dramatising it. The truth, of course, is vastly different.

What made many of the centrist voters angry (and turned them into solid PO voters) was the coalition with Lepper and Giertych. PiS were desperate for real power, and the only way to hold onto it was to work with them - which - when the centrist voters expected coalition with PO - was an incredibly stupid move.

of curse it isn't.

He was never the leader. The leader of Poland is the Premier, as in Germany. And how many people can name the President of Germany without checking.

LK choose to ignore that, flouting the constitution whenever he felt like it, not least with his treasonous 'fourth republic' project. Allowing a situation to arise where the president and premier are identical twins, His behaviour after the PiSuarzy were thrown out of office (refusing to sign off presidential appointments, turning up unannounced and uninvited at international conferences, unconstitutionally threatening to block legislation on party political grounds etc) coupled with.his 'now it's our f#cking turn' attitude to corruption all point to him having been the worst politician in Poland since Bierut if not Dmowski.

The only good thing he did for Poland was to die in office before he could do any real damage. To use his own words, spieprzaj dziadu.

Nope, in Poland it is more complicated.


That is your opinion and one full of bile.

LK wasn't a good leader.

No, it's not. The constitution makes it very clear - the Sejm is the most important. The Presidency is an advisory/ceremonial position and carries little executive power (and certainly not the amount of power that LK thought it had).

The office of the President of Poland differ from its German counterpart. The President of Poland has more say in everyday decisions, particularly nominations,thats all.

No matter what LK was thinking or doing - he was always being portrayed as the one in wrong - anyway it is immaterial to the point I made.

But what has his twin been up to.Can anyone tell me?Is he still politically influential.

I agree.

His twin seems to have been politically marginalised, not least by his increasingly paranoid comments and behaviour. One question is, which was the worst of the two twins?

As I am not familiar with their politics;I couldn't say.What do the majority of Poles think of them.What American party would be the closest equivalent to theirs?What sites could I go to;that would explain the Polish political system the best.

Lech Kaczyński was nor perfect, neither terrible... As the President he was not received very well because average Joe in Poland (pretty much as anywhere else) has not much clue about politics and is heavily influnced by the media, "celebrities" and so on... For them he was very inconvinient, as he supported decommunization, was making fight against corruption one of the top priorities, was not too happy about making Poland a province of a country called EU etc. Poland is unfortunately a country, where "elites" are still mainly made of people with some connections to commies, "businessmen" who accumulated their wealth taking over state-owned companies for a fraction of their real values, "proffesors" who got the scientific degrees under communism for spying on their colleagues etc. So they attacked and ridiculed him at every opportunity (with foreign media, mainly German, helping them as strong and trully independent Poland is of course not in their interest) and that gradually changed the public opinion (so much for "democracy") to the point that some of the least intellectually/morally gifted individuals (plebs) were even expressing their joy over his death.

Some example here:


On the other hand, current prrresident - the real village idiot, who has all disadvantages of Kaczyński and none of his advantages, is allright as he is defending interests of the "elites".

One of the many fallacies the above post is that he had some sort of role in the fight against corruption. He didn't. He did however have a history of, sometimes illegally ,intervening when anyone other than he and his brother's cronies we're getting their snouts in a trough that they had their eyes on.

LK was a national disgrace and an international joke. Poland lucky he is no longer around.

and you want to be treated with respect, man

not mentioning that you can't really name a single instance of what you insinuate

ahhh it's refreshing to see that the political game is played the same every where.Now, how do I as an objective observer, sift through the propaganda and substantiate what's being said.I admire the articulation of Gregorz_ and johnnyM.Please cite sources?It would be much appreciated.If anyone can

you won't find a synthesis like Grzegorz's in any single internet source

That's your excuse, but Lech Kaczynski had the 2nd highest selling daily newspaper behind him, as well as a TV channel and radio station. Trying to claim that the "media" is to blame is futile.


Yeah yeah, he was all these things, but all he did was petty, senseless acts. He didn't do a damned thing about corruption among his own, he had no idea how to deal with the EU (mainly because he was acting in a ceremonial, not executive role) and he hardly supported decommunization when his own father was a turncoat traitor.


That's the usual excuse spouted by those who simply weren't good enough to make it. I could introduce you to plenty of people who got there through hard work, but you'd just scorn them because they aren't failures.


Again - excuses. People hated him not because of what the media told them, but because of what he did. He was an utter disaster as President, with approval ratings at the time of his death hovering around the 20% mark. You know - unlike your PiS crowd - we can think for ourselves. We don't need to media to tell us that he's bad - we only need to know that he vetoed endless things.


And that's exactly why you and PiS will stay in opposition - abusing the President (who has approval ratings in the 60's) won't win you elections.


Indeed. I don't think it's much of a surprise that they went after the SLD - heck, the stuff with Walesa (who has been definitively cleared by the IPN) was nothing but a ridiculous witchhunt.

The brothers did nothing about corruption apart from a couple of high profile incidents - all designed to get them media attention. All the talk of "anti-corruption" was just a way to get cheap votes from people who thought that the sons of a Communist traitor (who betrayed his former AK allies) would actually do such a thing.


The best source is The Economist - they tend to present a balanced view of what's going on. You might also want to read the US Embassy cables relating to Poland - many of them objectively discuss things, and show what PiS were upto when in Government.

Stay away from Polish-written sources, especially in English.


Of course you will. Gazeta Polska et al will happily present such views. You can even read the hysterical freepl.info if you want to read more of such rubbish.

which corruption among his own? - name some good examples - or did you just assume they all must be stealing the same?
btw what is president supposed to singularily do about corruption? - I can tell you one thing - corruption was targeted during PiS times much more than now or in recent years


you must be joking

thank you gumishu.This has been a very enjoyable thread.People are not so much clueless as apathetic.There is a wide gap between an honest politician and a good politician.Without the elite they can not exist.that really sucks.

Wow. That's trully fascinating... let's concentrate on this one:


As this is more on topic than your opinion about his father or your subjective feelings... Please explain what you ment by "we only need to know that he vetoed endless things". Thank you in advance.

I wouldn't have problem with your right to your opinion if not for lies and manipulations on the top of it I can bet that you are proud of yourself because of that -yuck.


Excuse ? Who or what he is excusing ? lost your marbles Mr Sleek ?


You said that the President in Poland cannot do nothing, he was disaster at doing nothing ?huh?


Mainly TV, thats the culprit !


What stuff ? It clear to anyone who Walsa was, no need for stuff to be made up!


Since when they know the best anything about Poland ?

Once again,Thanks for quite a stimulating as well as enlightening chat.there seems to be vitriol when discussing the twins.Before this thread I knew next to nothing about Kaczinski.I've been able to piece meal bits about his character here and there..A picture is forming.After I study more,If you will indulge me,I will also give my unbiased opinion.This how I learn best.

All you need to ask yourself is why he vetoed the appointment of professors, laws, etc. It was solely out of malice in many cases.


What? What lies and manipulations? Are you claiming that he didn't have TV Trwam, Radio Maryja and Gazeta Polska 100% behind him, as well as countless hysterical right-wing websites?


He cannot do anything except ceremonial tasks - the problem was that the architects of the Constitution didn't imagine that the President would be so petty as to use the veto as a weapon against political opponents.


I don't know about your type, but me and my friends barely switch the thing on. And when I do, it's usually for playing computer games, not for watching TV.


Say what you want, but the professionals at the IPN have cleared him of what he's accused of by the usual suspects. All this because he suggested that Jarek was gay...


They're the best chance of getting unbiased opinions. The US opinion about the PiS/Samobroona/LPR coalition is very interesting - they make it clear that the twins (as we know) were hell bent on destroying the credibility of their coalition partners and stealing their votes in order to gain a majority.