Polish Politician to Former Polish Prime Minister: Are You Gay?

WARSAW, January 11, 2009  –  It has to be one of the most startling Polish political blogs of all-time.  A politician publicly asking the former Prime Minister if he is gay.

But that is what the controversial Member of the Sejm (MP) , Janusz Palikot asked today on his blog of Jarosław Kaczyński, the former Prime Minister.

Mr. Palikot, from the Public Platform party, astonished reporters at an April 2007 press conference by turning up in a t-shirt with “Jestem gejem” (I am gay) on the back.  He said he wore the t-shirt to highlight that the Public Platform should be the defenders of minorities.

Rumblings on the sexuality of Jarosław Kaczyński have been going on for years.  The sexagenarian, whose identical twin brother Lech is President of Poland, has never, it is said, had a girl-friend and has always lived with his mother and his cat.

It was the former trade union leader who rose to be Poland’s first post-Soviet era President, Lech Wałęsa, who ten years ago first hinted one the sexuality of Jarosław Kaczyński when he said on television the he had invited the Kaczyński twins to a party – Lech with his wife and Jarosław with his husband.

In asking his blunt question on his blog, Mr. Palikot says that there is no problem for him whatever the answer.

“The problem would be to hide this from the public,” he writes.

And as an example of how to be candid, he ends this blog:  “Ja – niepytany – oświadczam, że jednoznacznie preferuję kobiety. A Pan, Panie Jarosławie?”

In English: “I – unasked – declare unequivocally that I prefer women.  And you, Mrs. Jarosławie?

■ Last year, Mr. Palikot said in an interview: “Uważam prezydenta za chama” (I think the President is a fool) – an offence under Poland’s stringent anti-defamatory laws.  He faces up to three years in prison.