(BBC): Polish President Lech Kaczynski, who has been killed in a plane crash at the age of 60, was a controversial figure on the world stage.
But his right-wing stance on many issues found ready reception among many Poles, especially traditionalist and rural voters.
Throughout his political career, he was not afraid to appeal to populist sentiments. As mayor of Warsaw, he twice banned gay parades and spoke in support of reintroducing the death penalty.
He was elected as Poland’s president in 2005 as candidate of the Law and Justice Party.
During the campaign, Mr Kaczynski insisted Poles needed a president who would stand up for their interests.
He said post-communist Poland, often called the “Third Republic”, needed radical transformation into a “Fourth Republic”, based on social justice and a strong state.
The Law and Justice party, which stresses the traditional values of the Roman Catholic Church, was founded by Mr Kaczynski and his twin brother, Jaroslaw, in 2001.
But they had already played an important role in shaping Poland’s post-Communist identity. In the 1990 presidential election, they were key players in securing the victory of the Solidarity leader Lech Walesa.
KACZYNSKIS IN CHARGE
Lech Kaczynski, who was born in 1949, had followed his brother into the anti-government movement in the late 1970s and served as an adviser to the strike committee at the Gdansk shipyard during the August 1980 Solidarity-led protests.
But the brothers found themselves outside mainstream politics in the early 1990s after falling out with President Walesa.
The relationship between the one-time allies in the fight against Communism soured further in recent years. In 2009, Mr Walesa sued President Kaczynski for alleging that he had actually spied for the Communist secret service in the 1970s.
In the wake of the 2005 election, Poland had two Kaczynskis holding the reins of power – Lech as president and, from 2006, Jaroslaw as prime minister.
Since 2007, however, President Kaczynski had to work with Donald Tusk, who was his defeated rival in the presidential poll two years earlier.
He asked Mr Tusk to form a government after the victory of his centre-right Civic Platform in elections in October 2007.
Under the Polish constitution, the president has fewer powers than the prime minister, but has a significant say in foreign policy.
It was at time a difficult relationship. Mr Kaczynski was a critic of Mr Tusk’s liberal economic policies and often vetoed the government’s bills.