Troublesome Twins; With one Kaczynski as president and now another as prime minister, a rising nation could be in for a bumpy ride.

Byline: Andrew Nagorski

They are, quite simply, the twins--and identical ones, at that--who now rule Poland. Elected president last fall, Lech Kaczynski swore in his brother Jaroslaw as prime minister last week, stripping away any pretense that anyone else is in charge. That's not all that's been stripped away, however. Only recently applauded as New Europe's biggest success story, Poland before last year's elections was emerging as a key new player within NATO and the EU, sending troops to Iraq and leading the European effort to support the Orange Revolution in neighboring Ukraine. Now it's mostly seen as a problem country, and increasingly, the twins are seen as the biggest problem of all.

Last fall, Jaroslaw assured voters he wouldn't take the job of prime minister if his party won, since he didn't want to jeopardize Lech's chances of winning the presidency. He also led voters to believe he would form a government with the liberal-leaning Civic Platform. Instead he joined his Law and Justice Party with two fringe parties in a coalition that has turned out to be virulently anti gay rights, nationalist to the point of jeopardizing its relations with both Germany and Russia, and whose emphasis on instilling "patriotism" in schools has already triggered a domestic backlash. As a result, Poland has found itself mocked and chastised by its Western neighbors.

By going back on another promise, after dumping popular Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz earlier this month, Jaroslaw has effectively declared that he doesn't care. That could mean bumpy times ahead for Poland. When a Berlin daily recently mocked Lech as "Europe's new potato" who ...