Two former child actors, who once stole the moon in a film, have turned to politics and are now set to take Poland, writes Derek Scally
Child film stars face a cruel fate. Home Alone star Macaulay Culkin's big appearances these days are in courtrooms not cinemas, and does anyone really care that Shirley Temple is still alive? Two child stars who have managed to avoid such a fate are Jaroslaw and Lech Kaczynski who shot to fame in 1960s Poland as the blonde, freckle-faced stars of the classic film The Two Who Stole the Moon. They played Jacek and Placek, two troublemakers who decide to steal the moon, sell it and live off the proceeds.
The freckles are gone now and the blond hair has turned grey, but the identical twins are delivering the performance of their lives in a two-part real-life drama that might be called The Two who Took the Country, about twins who plot to become the prime minister and president of Poland in quick succession.
The first half of the drama played out last weekend and the story concludes with a cliffhanger finale tomorrow week.
The twins were born in the ruins of Warsaw in 1949 - Jaroslaw 45 minutes before Lech - and learned from an early age to help each other out. In school, Jaroslaw would sit science exams for his brother, while Lech took language exams pretending to be Jaroslaw. They both studied law in Warsaw University and joined the burgeoning anti-communist movement in the 1970s. Lech became an adviser to the Solidarity trade union and to its leader, Lech Walesa, and was imprisoned as a result in December 1981.
After the communist regime fell in 1989, Solidarity split and went in two different political directions. The Kaczynski brothers stood by Walesa, and he appointed them advisers when he became president in 1990, but the three soon fell out and the brothers departed. They returned to the political front-lines a decade later, by which time the Polish political landscape had become a very complicated spider's web of splits, cobbled-together coalitions and further splits.
In 2001, the two who stole the moon founded the conservative Law and Justice Party (PiS) in response to the seemingly unstoppable wave of corruption and sleaze washing over the country. Public frustration at political corruption has meant that, since 1989, Polish voters have ousted every elected government after four years, see-sawing between left- and right-wing parties.
WITH JAROSLAW AT the helm, the PiS topped the poll in last Sunday's general election, ousting the reformed communist government after four scandal-filled years, leaving the new parliament with an enfeebled political left. The PiS had anticipated this and pitched itself in the election campaign as all things to all men: "Technically right-wing but actually left," as one newspaper put it.
The party's campaign was a left-right mish-mash of patriotic polemic and religious fervour, promising a strong state for the poor and tough justice for criminals. Jaroslaw Kaczynski explained his programme by saying that it is a "misunderstanding" that right-wing parties have to be anti-social. He is a fan of what he calls "Ireland's organised liberalism" but he pushed the PiS into first place in the last days of the campaign by attacking the flat tax proposals of his likely future coalition partner as a "liberal threat".
The only real way to tell the twins apart is the mole on Lech's cheek and the wedding ring on his left hand. He is married with a grown-up daughter, while Jaroslaw is a bachelor and lives with his mother and six cats.
Jaroslaw and Lech rarely appear together in public but talk at least half a dozen times a day. Their oft-repeated phrase, "My brother and I think . . . ", has become a cult expression in Poland.
THE TWINS HAVE many fans but also many critics who say they are playing games with Polish democracy, that their personalities dominate the PiS and that, for them, ideology and the public good play second fiddle to the pursuit and retention of power. But the brothers shrug off criticism and are always good for a surprise, such as last Tuesday when Jaroslaw relinquished his ambition to become prime minister and stood aside for another PiS candidate.
Cynics suggest it is just a game for Jaroslaw, who has publicly changed his mind at least twice already about becoming prime minister. If people think now that he is out of the picture, they might be more likely to vote for brother Lech, who just happens to be running in next weekend's presidential election.
There's no doubt that, four decades on, the two who stole the moon still aim high. Their long-term political goal is a "fourth republic", a corruption-free, confident Poland bestriding the central European stage with a new constitution and a presidential democracy along French lines. They have promised Poles a "moral revolution", and they attack with relish anyone who offends their moral values.
Lech is Poland's most famous homophobe and, as mayor of Warsaw, has banned the city's Gay Pride parade for the last two years saying it would "promote a homosexual lifestyle". In June, more than 2,500 people ignored his ban and marched through Warsaw anyway. In response, a "Parade of Normality" was organised for the following weekend. Around 800 "normal" people showed up.
"Homosexuals . . . should have normal social and citizen rights but maybe they should not be employed in certain professions," said Lech Kaczynski at a press conference. "Active homosexuals should not be teachers." But Lech has a soft side too: since taking office he has begun distributing free food to Warsaw's stray cats. Meanwhile Jaroslaw, a cat-lover who has never managed to shake off speculation about his own sexuality, has his own obsessions.
"Sixty years ago the Jews were a plagued and murdered people . . . now they have risen to become one of the most powerful peoples in the world, although they are so few," he told Germany's Tageszeitung newspaper. "Naturally the Jews have particular characteristics but they are a good example that it can work. It remains to be seen whether we succeed in repeating the success of the Jews."
The twins have a knack for stirring up rows with Berlin and Moscow, but no one in Warsaw knows how the twins will behave in future towards the EU. In the European Parliament, the PiS sits alongside Fianna Fáil in the Union for a Europe of Nations. PiS is strongly nationalistic and suspicious of a federal Europe. It agrees with its future coalition partner, the Civic Platform (PO), that the constitutional treaty is a bad idea, but disagrees on other issues. The twins oppose Turkey's EU accession and are against rushing into the euro zone. But there is speculation that they will have to moderate their tone to reflect public opinion. Around two thirds of Poles have a positive opinion of EU integration and institutions.
At the PiS election night party, the twins' tiny mother, Jadwiga, held court with journalists. "They were a bit naughty as children but they are good boys," she said. For her, it seems, the enfants terribles of Polish politics have never been double trouble, just twice the joy.