THE identical Kaczynski twins, Europe’s most unusual political partnership, last night took over the reins of power in Poland after the Government collapsed.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski will take over as Prime Minister from Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, it was announced, ending weeks of often bitter in-fighting within the conservative Law and Justice Party. Mr Kaczynski, 57, is older by a few minutes than Lech Kaczynski, who is the country’s President.

Most Poles cannot tell them apart. One of the few distinguishing marks is the cat hairs on the trousers of Jaroslaw, who lives alone with his pets.

The immediate reason for the political crisis appears to be talks held between Mr Marcinkiewicz and Donald Tusk, leader of the opposition Civic Platform. The governing coalition parties suspected that the Prime Minister was trying to sound out the terms of a possible new coalition. All trust appears to have broken down between Mr Marcinkiewicz and one of his key allies, the volatile Andrzej Lepper.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski has always tried to avoid becoming Prime Minister because of the apparent absurdity of having two identical brothers running the country. But the present crisis has left him no choice: without him, the right-wing conservative alliance would have crumbled.

It has already become one of the most controversial governments in the region. Although the Law and Justice-led government is committed to market reform,, its strident nationalism and commitment to Catholic values has given it the reputation of being the least tolerant nation in Eastern Europe.

The twins are on the same political wavelength. Both are sceptical of a more deeply integrated European Union, and both are thin-skinned about what they see as slighting behaviour by Poland’s big neighbours, Germany and Russia.

The latest dispute this week saw President Kaczynski refusing to turn up at a trilateral meeting in Weimar with Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, and President Chirac of France. He claimed to have a stomach ailment. Most observers, however, believe he was upset by a satirical attack on him carried by a low-circulation left-wing German newspaper.

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