Demonstrations last year calling for a monument to the late president be placed outside the Presidential Palace; photo - PAP

We look at how political conflict over the Smolensk tragedy has included a battle over how to commemorate the memory of the late president, Lech Kaczynski and the others who died last April.

Though there are various plaques and monuments already in place in Warsaw and Krakow, the row over whether a monument should be placed outside the Presidential Palace has raised the political temperature in Poland.

“The monument should be [outside the Presidential Palace] and its form should be decided in open competition,” says head of the opposition Law and Justice’s parliamentary party, Maruisz Blaszczak.

The ruling Civic Platform party, however, says that there are more appropriate places for the monument than outside the Presidential Palace. The tomb where Lech Kaczynski is buried, in Wawel Castle in Krakow, which already contains the tombs of past kings of Poland, is the best monument to the late president, argue some MPs.

Polish Radio’s Magda Jensen reports that Mayor of Warsaw, Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz has said that the citizens of Warsaw can give their opinion on whether to build another monument to the late president in the capital during the annual ‘barometer’ opinion poll taken by Warsaw Town Hall. (pg)