POLAND:Radek Sikorski's departure has raised questions again about how the prime minister is running his government, writes Daniel McLaughlin
The resignation of a well-connected defence minister and his replacement by a close ally of the ruling Kaczynski brothers has re-opened debate in Poland over whether the pugnacious twins favour loyalty over ability when making key appointments.
Radek Sikorski quit this week after complaining that he was not being given a free hand to forge a defence ministry team capable of managing Poland's expanding mission in Afghanistan, where Warsaw is increasing its deployment to around 1,000 troops from the current 100.
Mr Sikorski (43) had clashed with Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski over the role of Antoni Macierewicz, the head of the military counter-intelligence service, who is a long-standing friend of Mr Kaczynski and shares his brand of nationalism and anti-communism.
In accepting Mr Sikorski's resignation, however, Mr Kaczynski - whose twin brother, Lech, is Poland's president - said only that he had "reservations" about the work of the Oxford University-educated former journalist, who is married to Washington Post columnist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anne Applebaum.
Mr Sikorski was quickly replaced by Aleksander Szczyglo, who worked as an assistant to Lech Kaczynski as long ago as 1990, and until this week was the president's chief of staff.
Mr Sikorski's departure raised eyebrows in Poland and abroad, not only because he was one of the few members of government to have strong contacts in major foreign capitals and with America's neo-conservative elite, but because Warsaw is currently in talks with Washington over plans to host part of a controversial missile defence system.
"Sikorski would have been well-placed to negotiate good conditions for Poland," said Jacek Kucharczyk, deputy head of Warsaw's Institute of Public Affairs. I think his resignation may make it easier for the Americans to get what they want without giving so much in exchange."
In Washington, prominent commentators agreed that his departure was a shock.
The Polish press quoted Zbigniew Brzezinski, who advised former US president Jimmy Carter on national security issues, as saying that Mr Sikorski's resignation "eliminates the only person familiar with strategic and political matters from the government.
"This is a further step toward Poland's self-isolation in the international arena," he added.
Lawrence Korb, a US assistant secretary of defence under President Reagan, was quoted as saying: "His dismissal will probably make it much more difficult for the Polish authorities to reach a successful agreement with the US."
Polish newspapers said the Kaczynskis believed Mr Sikorski was not doing enough to root out former communists in the defence apparatus - something that would anger the identical twins, who have made it a priority to purge ex-communists from public life.
Mr Szczyglo swiftly nailed his colours to the Kaczynskis' mast yesterday.
Vowing to "restore patriotic values to the military", Mr Szczyglo said he would support a law to demote communist-era officials and reduce their pensions.
"The heroes of our military should be people who fought for the country's independence, patriots ... and not Soviet appointees," he told Polish radio.
The Kaczynskis were part of the Solidarity movement that toppled Polish communism in 1989, but they later denounced its leaders for co-operating with ex-communists to guide through Poland's transition to democracy.
The twins were denied a purge in 1989 - but now, critics say, they are making up for lost time and filling the halls of power with their closest ideological allies. Since their party took power in late 2005, the twins have placed their supporters in charge of important institutions and state-owned companies, and have opened the previously non-partisan civil service to political appointees.
They recently replaced a combative Central Bank governor with Slawomir Skrzypek, who was a deputy to Lech Kaczynski in his former job as mayor of Warsaw and has little or no experience of setting monetary policy.
One man tipped to replace Mr Skrzypek as the head of Poland's largest commercial bank, PKO, is Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, who was the Kaczynskis' favoured candidate in December's elections for mayor of Warsaw, but who lost the election to a woman from the main liberal opposition party.
Jaroslaw Kaczynski is now demanding that she be barred from the post, however - for filing a statement of her husband's financial interests two days after a deadline.