Jaroslaw Kaczynski
Date of Birth: 18.06.1949
Jaroslaw Alexander Kaczynski - Polish politician, founder and chairman of the ruling conservative party 'Law and Justice' (PiS). From July 14, 2006, to November 9, 2007, he was Prime Minister of Poland.
Place of Birth. Education. Jaroslaw Kaczynski was born on June 18, 1949, in Warsaw, in the Zoliborz district. His father, Raimund Kaczynski, was an engineer by profession and a participant in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 during World War II and a fighter in the Armia Krajowa. His mother, Jadwiga (née Jasevich), was a Polish philologist. Jaroslaw is the twin brother of former Polish President Lech Kaczynski (45 minutes older).
He completed his schooling at the XLI Gymnasium of Joachim Lelewel and the XXXIII Gymnasium of Nicolaus Copernicus in Warsaw (1967). He studied at Warsaw University, obtaining his Master’s degree in 1971 from the Faculty of Law and Administration, and defended his doctoral dissertation at the same faculty in 1976.
From 1971 to 1976, he was a research assistant at the Institute of Political Science and worked at the university. Subsequently, until 1981, he served as a lecturer at the Bialystok outpost of Warsaw University. From 1982 to 1983, he worked as a senior librarian at the University Library of Warsaw University.
In 1990, he co-founded the Press Fund 'Solidarity'. In the same year, he joined the joint-stock company 'Telegraf' along with Lech Kaczynski, Maciej Zalewski, Andrzej Urbanski, and Krzysztof Chabanski and sold his shares to Maciej Zalewski in 1991. From 1994 to 1997, Jaroslaw Kaczynski headed the publishing department of the joint-stock company 'Srebrna'.
Political Career. In 1976, after labor strikes in Radom, he began his activities in the Workers' Protection Committee (KOR) and later in the KOR Intervention Bureau, where he investigated cases of murders committed by agents of the Polish secret services and militia. Starting in 1979, he was part of the editorial team of the independent monthly magazine 'Głos', led by Antoni Macierewicz. In the same year, he participated in the work of 'Solidarity' and headed the legal department of the Center for Social Research in the Masovian Voivodeship. In 1981, he signed the founding declaration of the Clubs for the Services of Independence.
In 1983, he began cooperating with the leadership of the independent trade union 'Solidarity', the Temporary Coordination Commission (TCC), and from 1986, he led the public-political office of the TCC and from 1987 served as secretary of the executive committee. He was involved in the work of the political thought clubs 'Dziekania', which operated legally since August 1988. During the strikes in 1988, he was a legal advisor to the Gdansk Lenin Shipyard.
From 1989 to 1990, he was the editor-in-chief of the weekly 'Tygodnik Solidarność'. From 1990 to 1991, he was State Minister and Chancellor of President Lech Walesa. He resigned after the 'Center Generation' party conflicted with the president. In 1990, he co-founded this party and became its chairman.
From 1989 to 1991, he was a member of the Senate of the first term, elected as a senator for the Elblong Voivodeship, and was a member of the Citizen's faction in parliament. On May 30, 1993, he was elected a deputy of the Sejm of the first term from the 'Center Understanding' list in Warsaw. On January 29, 1993, he was one of the organizers of the so-called March to the Belvedere, which demanded the resignation of Lech Walesa and decommunization.
He became a member of the Sejm again in 1997 (III term) as a candidate of the Movement for the Restoration of Poland (RVP) from the Warsaw district. Shortly after the meetings began, he left the RVP faction and became an independent. On December 30, 1997, he resigned as chairman of the 'Center Understanding' party and left the party in 1998. In 1999, he returned to the party and was elected its honorary chairman in October. In January 2000, he, together with Ludwik Dorn, rejoined the RVP faction, which he was part of until July 2001.
In 2001, he, together with Lech Kaczynski, founded the 'Law and Justice' (PiS) party, which received 9.5% of the votes and 44 parliamentary seats in the 2001 parliamentary elections. Jaroslaw Kaczynski retained his seat in the Sejm and won in the Warsaw district. From 2001 to 2003, he was a member of the Ethics Committee and chairman of the PiS parliamentary faction. In 2003, he took over the party, succeeding his brother Lech Kaczynski, who was elected mayor of Warsaw.
In 2005, 'Law and Justice' won the parliamentary elections, and Jaroslaw Kaczynski received a parliamentary mandate in the Warsaw district. He did not participate in the formation of a new government and proposed Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz for the post of prime minister. This coincided with the second round of the presidential elections, in which his brother Lech Kaczynski was a candidate. On December 28, 2005, he received his place in the National Security Council from the President of Poland.
After the resignation of Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, Jaroslaw Kaczynski was formally recommended by his party on July 7, 2006, to apply for the position of Prime Minister. On July 10, 2006, Lech Kaczynski appointed Jaroslaw Kaczynski as Prime Minister.
On April 26, 2007, he took over as chairman of the organizing committee for the European Football Championship, which took place in Poland and Ukraine in 2012 ('Euro 2012').
In the snap elections in October 2007, after the collapse of the ruling coalition, PiS was defeated by the Civic Platform. Jaroslaw Kaczynski resigned, and Donald Tusk, chairman of the Civic Platform, became Prime Minister.
He remained chairman of PiS at the party congress in early 2008. In the Sejm of the sixth term, he was a member of the Constitutional Responsibility Committee, the State Control Committee, and the Committee for Relations with Poles Abroad. In March 2010, he was overwhelmingly re-elected chairman of the party at the PiS congress.
On April 26, 2010, Jaroslaw Kaczynski was officially nominated as a candidate for the presidency in the snap presidential elections that followed the death of his brother Lech Kaczynski in a plane crash in Smolensk.
On June 20, 2010, he finished second in the first round of the presidential elections in Poland with 36.46% and progressed to the second round against the incumbent president Bronislaw Komorowski, who garnered 41.54% in the first round. The runoff of the presidential elections was held on July 4, 2010, in Poland. The victory in the second round went to Bronislaw Komorowski, who received 53.01% of the vote, while Jaroslaw Kaczynski received 46.99%.
In the 2011 parliamentary elections, the party he led came in second place with 29.88% of the votes and obtained 158 seats in the Sejm.
On June 29, 2013, he was re-elected chairman of PiS.
He supported his party member Andrzej Duda in the 2015 presidential elections, who finished first with 53% of the vote.
On June 20, 2015, Jaroslaw Kaczynski proposed Beata Szydlo for the post of Prime Minister of Poland at the party conference in case of victory in the 2015 parliamentary elections.
In the 2015 parliamentary elections, the party he led came in first with 37.6% of the votes and obtained 235 seats in the Sejm. The party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski waived his deputy mandate.
In the 2019 parliamentary elections, the party he led finished first with 43.59% of the votes and received 235 seats in the Sejm.
On October 6, 2020, he took on the role of Deputy Prime Minister of the second government of Mateusz Morawiecki and is responsible for the area of security ministries.
On June 21, 2022, Jaroslaw Kaczynski announced that he was resigning from his posts as Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of the National Security and Defense Committee in the Polish government.
Family. Jaroslaw Kaczynski is not married. He lives in the Warsaw district of Zoliborz.
Interesting Facts. At the age of thirteen in 1962, he, along with his twin brother Lech, played the lead roles in a popular Polish children's film fairy tale 'O dwóch takich, co ukradli księżyc' (Eng. About those who stole the moon).
20.09.2023