Polish president - a difficult man when alive, popular in death
By Surender Bhutani, IANSWednesday, April 14, 2010
WARSAW - In his lifetime Lech Kaczynski was a very difficult man and his approval rate had gone down to less than 20 percent. But after his death he has become a very popular person, next only to the late Pope John Paul II, a Polish native.
“Such is the irony of our tragic nation. We seldom like living people and we always glorify our dead ones. Lech Walesa, the solidarity icon, is still alive and only a few people now give him respect. He is almost in the dustbin of history,” Anna Bem, a well-known Indophile, told IANS.
A Soviet-made TU-154 carrying President Lech Kaczynski hit the top of trees as it attempted to land at Smolensk airport in western Russia in thick fog April 10, killing all 96 people on board the plane.
Thousands of Poles have come out on the streets with candles and flowers and moved towards the presidential chancery near the historic old town part of Warsaw to pay their tributes.
For the past three chilly nights of April, they have been assembling at Pilsudki Square - named after Field Marshal Josef Pilsudki who liberated Poland from the Germans and Russians in 1920.
If there are no answers to be found as to why the nation has been robbed of many of its brightest minds and 10 army generals in the tragic accident, Poles are finding reassurance and hope in the presence of so many others in the same state of shock and mourning.
It is also ironic that Lech Kaczynski remained anti-Russian till the last moment of his life, but his tragic death brought Poland and Russia together.
The Russian people have shared Polish grief which is unparalleled in the history of these two nations whose hostility and enmity go back many centuries.
The Russian leadership has displayed sympathy and a rapid opening of an investigation into the incident could ultimately lead to an unexpected warming of Polish-Russian relations.
The sharing of centrestage by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Polish Prime Minster Donald Tusk is a first positive sign of this budding relationship.
Normally sceptic Poles smell a Russian hand in all their accidents and tragedies, but this time hardly any voice has been raised against Russians.
Rather they were surprised by the way President Dmitry Medvedev in a national address announced a day of national mourning in Russia Monday. This was the first time such an honour has been accorded to an incident involving foreign citizens.
There has not been any breakdown of law and order and governmental continuity has also not been threatened. Speaker of parliament Bronislaw Komorowski assumed the duties of acting president and the election of a new president will be held by the end of June.
Simliarly the National Bank’s
vice-president has taken over the duties of president of the bank. The ruling party has remained intact as no politician of this party had accompanied Kaczynski on the trip to Katyn.
The loss is to the main opposition party, Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc (PIS), which is being led by Kaczynski’s twin brother Jaroslaw.
It was Jaroslaw’s crusade against corruption that had helped his brother Kaczynski to succeed as president in the October 2005 elections.
Now the party has to find a strong candidate in the coming election.
The twins had become famous in Poland by starring at the age of 12 in a film version of “The Two Who Stole The Moon”, a popular Polish children story.
Both studied law and joined the Solidarity movement. Both went on to become advisors to Lech Walesa. Both fought with Walesa and he fired them both. Later, Kaczynski went on to become president and Jaroslaw became prime minister.
With Kaczynski dead and Jaroslaw alone with a crumbling party, it needs to be seen whether Kaczynski’s daughter Marta, who emigrated to Australia, returns home to don her father’s mantle.
(Surender Bhutani can be reached at suren84in@yahoo.com)
