WARSAW — Poland's future conservative premier stirred controversy Monday with her choice of defence minister, known for accusing Russia of playing a role in the deadly 2010 crash of a Polish presidential jet.
Future prime minister Beata Szydlo tapped veteran rightwinger Antoni Macierewicz, 67, for the job.
After the death of president Lech Kaczynski and scores of other senior Polish officials when the plane crashed in Smolensk in Russia, Macierewicz suggested it may have been deliberate.
Without offering decisive proof, he accused Moscow of instigating an attack on Kaczynski's jet in collusion with Poland's then prime minister Donald Tusk, now the EU president.
Szydlo spoke in Warsaw alongside Jaroslaw Kaczynski, head of the Law and Justice (PiS) party and widely regarded as the mastermind behind all of the faction's moves in the run up to and following its victory in the October 25 general election.
It scored an unprecedented majority, allowing it to govern alone.
Even though investigators in Moscow and Warsaw concluded that pilot error was to blame for the Smolensk crash, Kaczynski — the late president's twin brother — has also insisted the crash was not an accident.
"This requires an honest investigation by the justice administration and a normally functioning prosecutor's office," Kaczynski said of the crash.
"No extraordinary institutions, no international commissions — unless perhaps someone abroad proposes this — but rather a normal investigation," he told reporters.
Coal Miner's Daughter
Szydlo is expected to be formally tapped as prime minister by PiS-backed President Andzej Duda after outgoing centrist premier Ewa Kopacz resigns this week.
Kaczynski chose the 52-year-old as the party's candidate after she ran a victorious presidential campaign for political greenhorn Duda in May.
A coal miner's daughter with a degree in ethnography, Szydlo became a member of parliament with PiS in 2005. On the campaign trail, she targeted voters with promises of lower taxes and higher welfare spending.
Key figures in her future cabinet include veteran diplomat Witold Waszczykowski, 58, as foreign minister. He recently criticized Warsaw's tendency to follow Berlin's lead in foreign affairs and insists Poland must "firmly defend Polish national interests" within the European Union.
He served as Poland's ambassador to NATO in Brussels from 1997 to 1999, when it was among the first ex-communist countries to join the Western defense alliance.
Zbigniew Ziobro, 45, will return to the justice portfolio he held in 2005-2007 when he was accused of meddling in the prosecution of certain rival politicians.
The trained lawyer was among the founders of the PiS in 2001, but was barred from it in 2011 after falling out with Jaroslaw Kaczynski. The two however joined forces for the general election.
Mariusz Kaminski, the controversial former head of the Central Anti-corruption Bureau (CBA), has been tapped as intelligence services coordinator.
Last March, Kaminski was found guilty of overstepping his jurisdiction as CBA chief. Although sentenced to three years behind bars and banned from public office for a decade, his lawyers have said they will appeal the verdict which has not yet come into force.
Euroskeptic economist Mateusz Morawiecki, 47, will serve as development minister, also responsible for the economy, while legal expert Pawel Szalamacha, 46, will take over as finance minister.
