Watch Beata Sawicka crying

POLAND’S ruling twins have been accused of dirty tricks after an opposition MP was filmed accepting a £50,000 bribe in a “sting” ahead of today’s general election.

Video footage of Beata Sawicka, when she was MP for the liberal Civic Platform party, accepting the payment was released to broadcasters by the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau, set up by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the prime minister, and his brother, Lech, the president, to fight graft.

The tactic may rebound. Sawicka, 43, a former schoolteacher, went on television to make a tearful public apology and described how she had been wooed by an undercover “Romeo” agent from the bureau, who gave her flowers and “pretended to have feelings” for her.

The mother of a 22-year-old son, she was arrested after she agreed to back the construction of a leisure complex on Poland’s northern coast. She has since been dropped as a candidate.

Donald Tusk, leader of the Civic Platform party, denounced the sting as a nakedly political move. “What concerns us is using the AntiCorruption Bureau directly in an election campaign,” he said.

The operation may have been the last throw of the dice by the twins, whose governing ultra-conservative Law and Justice party is trailing Civic Platform in the polls. Polish opinion surveys are notoriously unreliable because only a minority of people bother to vote. Turnout in 2005 was about 40%. A surge in support for Tusk followed a debate last weekend in which he was widely seen as having beaten Jaroslaw Kaczynski by showing a better grasp of subjects such as the price of basic foods.

During the campaign the Kaczynskis have been accused of employing undemocratic methods. Opponents claim they have used the secret services for political skulduggery, often smearing their opponents by linking them to the country’s communist past.

Even if Jaroslaw loses the election to be prime minister and goes into opposition, Lech will stay as president until 2010. But the twins have no lasting alliances and a coalition is likely.

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