Warsaw: Poland's acting president yesterday vowed to move swiftly to set an election date and remove uncertainty stemming from the death of President Lech Kaczynski and dozens of other high-ranking officials in a plane crash.
The coffin of Kaczynski's wife Maria was received by family members, top military officials and senior Catholic clergy at a sombre ceremony at Warsaw airport before being driven to the presidential palace to lay in state alongside her husband.
Thousands of Poles lined the 10km route to the city centre, covering the hearse carrying the popular first lady's body with flowers in a replay of the moving procession that brought the president's body home on Sunday.
Kaczynski and his wife Maria will be laid to rest on April 18 in Wawel castle in the southern city of Krakow, Poland's PAP news agency said yesterday, quoting local authorities.
The crypt in the castle's cathedral is already the last resting place of kings from Poland's past monarchy, as well as the founding father of the republic, Jozef Pilsudski, who died in 1935.
Combative nationalist
Kaczynski, a combative nationalist known for his distrust of both the European Union and Russia, had been travelling to mark the 70th anniversary of the massacre of more than 20,000 Polish officers by Soviet secret police in the Katyn forest in western Russia when his plane went down on Saturday in thick fog.
A total of 96 people died in the crash, including Polish military commanders, top opposition figures and the central bank governor, plunging the country into mourning and bringing forward a presidential vote originally due in October.
Opinion polls before the crash showed Bronislaw Komorowski, the lower house speaker who has been thrust into the role of acting president, trouncing the increasingly unpopular Kaczynski.
However, with an upsurge in sympathy over the president's death, it is now harder to predict how people will vote.
Komorowski is a member of Prime Minister Donald Tusk's centrist Civic Platform (PO) while the deceased president's twin brother, Jaroslaw, heads the right-wing opposition party, Law and Justice (PiS).
A memorial service for the victims and state funeral for the presidential couple will be held at the weekend and is expected to be attended by numerous heads of state and government, including Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Komorowski now has the difficult job of unifying a devastated nation while steering it towards an election he wants to win.
Polish markets have remained stable following the crash, with stocks and the zloty currency trading broadly flat yesterday after inching higher on Monday.
Komorowski told TVP Info television it was important to move swiftly to declare an election date by today.
"The election date must be set," said Komorowski.
"This must be done as soon as possible to shorten the period in which Poland is in a period of uncertainty."
According to the Polish constitution, the election must take place within 60 days of the announcement.
As elections are always held on a Sunday and June 5 is a major religious holiday in staunchly Roman Catholic Poland, the most likely dates for the vote would appear to be May 30 or June 13.
