Poles are due to elect a new president on June 20 following the death of Lech Kaczynski, along with 95 other people, mostly senior Polish officials, in a plane crash in Russia on April 10.

Despite an upsurge of sympathy for the Kaczynski family, opinion polls show Acting President Bronislaw Komorowski of the centrist Civic Platform as the most likely election winner.

Lech Kaczynski, elected president in 2005, had been expected to lose the election to Komorowski.

“In reality, it won’t be him (Jaroslaw Kaczynski) running, it will be his brother. His campaign team will play on sympathy for his brother,” said Krzysztof Bobinski, head of the Unia & Polska Foundation, a Warsaw think-tank.

“Kaczynski would have a chance to win only if other candidates make mistakes. This is a difficult situation for everybody. This is not a normal election campaign but I think political attitudes generally have not changed among voters.”

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, a former prime minister who also heads Poland’s main opposition party, the right wing, euroskeptic Law and Justice (PiS), said he wanted to continue his brother’s conservative mission.

Lech Kaczynski and his wife Maria were buried in state funeral in Krakow on April 18. Komorowski took over as acting president on Kaczynski’s death in his capacity as speaker of parliament, the second highest-ranking position in Poland’s state hierarchy.

The decision to run will have been difficult for Kaczynski both personally and politically. Many Poles see him as a divisive figure whose spell as premier in 2006-7 put a strain on Poland’s relations with Germany, Russia and the EU.

Polish media also say he has yet to tell his ailing 83-year-old mother of Lech’s death.