Controversial populist leader Lepper remembered in Warsaw

Andrzej Lepper was the leader of the populist agrarian Self Defence party, which lost all of its parliamentary seats in the 2007 general election amid a series of scandals.

The granite plaque was revealed at the party headquarters in downtown Warsaw after a Mass and march took place with around one hundred party supporters.

Former spokesman of Self Defence and a close aide of Andrzej Lepper, who was found dead in his office on 5 August 2011, told journalists on Sunday that “despite the controversy which [Andrzej Lepper] conjured up around him, he was a unique, one-of-a-kind individual on the Polish political scene.”

Andrzej Lepper was found hanging in his office by his son-in-law. The District Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw determined that no traces of alcohol or illegal narcotics were found in the blood of the politician.

Within days of the death, details of the politician’s financial problems emerged in the press, with revelations that there was no money for petrol or machinery to cover harvesting costs at the Lepper family farm.

The former Deputy Prime Minister, who served between 2006 and 2007 in the Law and Justice coalition government, had also been plagued by a sex scandal which ultimately saw his colleague Stanislaw Lyzwinski imprisoned on multiple charges, including rape.

In March 2011 an Appeal Court in Lodz, central Poland, had granted Andrzej Lepper a retrial over the matter of allegedly trying to procure sex from a female in return for a job. (di/jb)

Supporters of Self Defence at the party headquarters on the first anniversary of the death of the group's leader Andrzej Lepper, 05.08.2012 Photo: PAP/Tomasz Gzell

Plaque commemorating Self Defence leader Andrzej Lepper unveiled on 05.08.2012 Photo: PAP/Tomasz Gzell