POLAND:The cigar man puffing on a thick Cohiba in his winged armchair as he accepts a cash-filled briefcase is the talk of Poland's snap election campaign.
That reminder of "once upon a time in Poland" segues to the present and a corrupt businessman swearing down the phone: "I know, f**k, they can't be bribed, let's find something on Kaczynski."
The television advertisement, complete with sinister music, instructs Polish voters: only prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski can be trusted to fight the so-called "grey network" of corruption in Polish public life. That pledge won him the 2005 election and now Mr Kaczynski has decided to play the card again for next month's snap poll: a lot done, more to do.
It could be a winning hand for his ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party. On taking office, the government began a high-profile war on corruption with a new Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA).
In recent months its balaclava-wearing officers have been a familiar sight on the television news, kicking in doors and leading away shaken suspects.
However, none of these televised raids has led to convictions. Instead, frustrated judges release suspects days later, complaining of a lack of evidence.
In February, CBA officers arrested a well-known surgeon, suggesting he had threatened to take a patient out of intensive care unless his family paid a bribe. In June a judge ruled there was no evidence for the charge.
In April, CBA officers raided the home of a former building minister as part of a bribery investigation, waving guns and cameras. The distressed minister dashed into her bathroom and shot herself.
It was a botched CBA operation into alleged planning corruption that brought down Mr Kaczynski's three-way coalition government in August. At the time, Andrzej Lepper, a suspect in the investigation and one of the departing coalition partners, remarked: "The CBA is a political police unit that exists for the protection of only one party: the PiS party."
That planning investigation led in turn to the televised arrest and imprisonment of former interior minister Janusz Kaczmarek. The arrest prevented him continuing to give damaging parliamentary testimony about alleged illegal actions by the CBA and the justice minister.
Mr Kaczmarek was later released by a judge who declared his arrest "irregular and without grounds".
Non-governmental organisations that welcomed the creation of the CBA are now concerned at how the body operates, in particular its powers to search records with only limited judicial control.
"[The CBA] has made a couple of spectacular arrests that played well in the media, but other than that, it's difficult to say what they've really done," said Jagoda Walorek of Transparency International Polska.
But political observers suggest that the average Polish voter is not interested in the CBA's methods but welcomes the impression that corruption is being taken on. That's where the cigar man comes in.
