Kaczynski 2.0
Brudzinski, the interior minister, who is also the PiS vice-president, is a Kaczynski loyalist who already stood in for him at a PiS meeting in May, which divvied out regional jobs.
He was with Kaczynski on holiday when the PiS chairman first hurt his knee and posts chummy photos together on social media.
"If I broke my leg, if something happened to me, he [Brudzinski] is the one I want to replace me," Kaczynski said, in a prescient remark, back in 2016.
Even less well known in Brussels than PiS prime ministers, Brudzinski is more Catholic than the Pope when it comes to Kaczynski's views on EU relations, migrants, and Smolensk.
"When I drove to Warsaw today, I filled up with petrol at Orlen [a Polish firm], despite all those 'Europeans'," he said last summer on Twitter.
People going on holiday should fill up their cars "only at POLISH stations. Everything that's POLISH is the best," he said.
At least he is clearly not very pro-EU!
