Polish prime minister offers to step down

July 7, 2006

WARSAW, Poland --Poland's prime minister offered to resign Friday and his replacement could look a lot like the current president.

Justice party said in a statement that it has recommended that President Lech Kaczynski's identical twin brother Jaroslaw replace Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz.

Party chairman Jaroslaw Kaczynski did not seek the prime minister's job last year because the brothers believed then that most people wouldn't want identical twins in Poland's two top political posts. Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz became prime minister instead.

It was not immediately clear when any change might happen, and the statement offered no reasons for Marcinkiewicz's offer to step down.

Deputy party leader Adam Lipinski told Poland's PAP news agency that the party leadership would meet Saturday to consider Marcinkiewicz's offer to step down.

There have been recent reports of a rift between Marcinkiewicz and Jaroslaw Kaczynski over the economic policy of Poland, the largest of 10 mostly ex-communist nations that joined the European Union in 2004.

Lech Kaczynski won the presidential election in October after his brother led their party to victory in parliamentary elections the month before. Both are former activists in the Solidarity trade union movement that helped topple communist rule in 1989-90

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