The conservative Law and Justice candidate Jaroslaw Kaczynski has praised leader of the 1970s Polish communist party, Edward Gierek (right) in a final attempt to attract left-wing voters.

“Gierek was a communist, but also a patriot,” said Kaczynski at a rally in Sonsonowiec, the home town of Gierek.

Kaczynski added that he would be glad if the communist leader’s son MEP Adam Gierek supported him in the second round of the presidential election on Sunday.

Gierek was leader of communist Poland when there was a modest economic boom on the back of foreign credits during the 1970s. Most of the credits were squandered on consumer goods and the economic upturn was short lived, ushering in an age of protest which climaxed with the Solidarity strikes of 1980.

But Kaczynski  - one of the prominent figures in the Solidarity movement in the 1980 - said that the First Secretary of the Polish United Workers’ Party was an ambitious politician and thanks to him, “Poland, in a sense, has developed.”

The Law and Justice leader stressed that while Gierek held the highest post in the country, Poland was visited by all U.S. presidents then in office. Kaczynski said that his generation preserved good memories of Gierek, who was “the best of all first secretaries”, but added that it should not be forgotten that in the 1970s the political opposition was repressed.

The result of Sunday’s second round of presidential elections hangs on how left wing voters, who supported SLD’s Grzegorz Napieralski in the first round, vote in the second round. Both Kaczynski and Bronilsaw Komorowski have been trying to woo this support. Observers say that Kaczynski’s praise of Gierek, who died in 2001, could go down well with some older voters. (pg/mg)

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Source: IAR