Lech Kaczyński

Biography

Lech Kaczyński was born in Warsaw in 1949, the identical twin of Jarosław Kaczyński; as children the two starred in the 1962 film The Two Who Stole the Moon. He studied law and administration at the University of Warsaw, earned a doctorate from the University of Gdańsk in 1980, and later taught labour law there and at Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University.

In the late 1970s he worked with the anti-communist Workers' Defence Committee and the free trade union movement. In August 1980 he advised the strike committee at the Gdańsk Shipyard, and after martial law was declared in 1981 he was interned. He remained active in underground Solidarity, advised Lech Wałęsa, and took part in the 1989 Round Table talks.

He became a senator in 1989 and a member of the Sejm in 1991, and headed the Supreme Audit Office from 1992 to 1995. In 2001 he and his brother founded the Law and Justice party. He was mayor of Warsaw from 2002 to 2005.

He won the 2005 presidential election against Donald Tusk, and in 2006 appointed his brother prime minister. He died with his wife and senior Polish officials on 10 April 2010, when their plane crashed near Smolensk on the way to a commemoration of the Katyn massacre.