Polish PM quits, party chief Kaczynski to take over
WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland's popular Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz resigned on Friday after growing tensions with his Law and Justice party, making way for Jaroslaw Kaczynski, twin brother of the president, to take over.
The party said Jaroslaw -- party leader and twin brother of President Lech Kaczynski -- may be approved by parliament next week. That would make the two the world's only twins to hold the two highest posts in any country.
While party officials said having the chief of the biggest party as prime minister would strengthen the coalition cabinet, critics bemoaned the concentration of power in the hands of the twins, sceptical of Europe and markets.
"I do not understand this decision, but I think it is a change for the worse," said Bronislaw Komorowski, a senior MP for the biggest opposition Civic Platform party.
"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."
Lars Christensen, senior central European analyst with Danske Bank, said of Marcinkiewicz's resignation: "We now have basically a government of nationalists and people with an extremely parochial view of things. This is just bad news on top of bad news."
Law and Justice sources said Marcinkiewicz had become increasingly at odds with the powerful twins over appointments to various state posts and general direction of policy.
They were frustrated by the slow pace of change at the helm of state owned firms and agencies and have promised a radical break from what they saw as an unholy alliance of political and business elites with former communist apparatchiks.
SAFE PAIR OF HANDS
While Marcinkiewicz has sought to please foreign investors with promises of fiscal discipline and paid at least a lip service to market reforms, the Kaczynskis are suspicious of markets and want to protect the economy from foreign dominance.
Both insist that Warsaw needs to act tough when dealing with its neighbors and EU partners, which critics say is a recipe for alienation and marginalisation of the European Union's biggest ex-communist member.
Financial markets have viewed Marcinkiewicz, his party's former chief economic spokesman, as a safe pair of hands, even if lacking political clout to carry out major reforms.
His resignation hit the zloty, which dipped to 4.07 against the euro in after-market trading from around 4.02 on Friday afternoon.
"This is extremely bad. He was the last person in the government who understood the market view, the economy, the outside world in general," said Danske Bank's Christensen.
Party sources said Marcinkiewicz's meeting with opposition leader Donald Tusk this week, not discussed with the party, and earlier appointment of an aide as new finance minister were the last straw for the party leadership.
"Kaczynski will change the finance minister as one of his first moves. Marcinkiewicz appointed (Pawel) Wojciechowski and that was the last straw and then he met Tusk," said a source close to the ruling Law and Justice. The source said Kaczynski did not plan any other major changes in his cabinet.
Many analysts believed Marcinkiewicz's popularity ratings, well above those of both Kaczynskis, were a thorn in the side for the brothers and would eventually lead to his dismissal.
But most thought that Marcinkiewicz's popularity was too much of an asset for the party to let him go before local government elections due in November.
(Additional reporting by Patrick Graham)
