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WARSAW: Polish lawmakers met Wednesday to decide the date of snap presidential elections as mourners queued for a second day to pay their respects to the country's first couple, killed in an air crash in Russia.
Under the Polish constitution the election must be held by the end of June, following the death of Lech Kaczynski in Saturday's disaster, which happened while his plane was en route to a memorial for a World War II massacre.
With Poland in political limbo, interim President Bronislaw Komorowski, the former parliamentary speaker appointed after the accident, was leading the meeting on the presidential elections, starting at noon (1000 GMT).
Komorowski is legally bound to announce a ballot date within two weeks of the President's death on April 10. Under the constitution the ballot must be held within 60 days of the election announcement.
Asked by Polish public television Tuesday if the date could be set Wednesday, Komorowski said: "It seems to me to be absolutely necessary because the constitution is very strict in this regard... also from the point of view of speeding up the election calendar."
A presidential ballot had been due by October with Komorowski, a liberal, expected to run against the conservative Kaczynski.
Kaczynski's identical twin brother Jaroslaw, who was Premier from 2006-07, may take his sibling's place, although he has made no public statement since the crash, in which 95 others were also killed.
Mourners queued through the night and into a second day to pay their respects to the bodies of Kaczynski and his wife, which were lying in state in closed coffins at the presidential palace in Warsaw.
The line to see them stretched for up to a kilometre (more than half a mile) at one point. Families including children filed silently past the caskets, with some people crossing themselves in a sign of their deep Roman Catholic faith.
The couple's funeral is to be held on Sunday in the cathedral of historic Wawel castle in the southern Polish city of Krakow, with US President Barack Obama leading a host of world leaders who are set to attend.
But opposition grew to plans to bury the Kaczynskis in spot where Polish kings and historical figures are laid to rest.
In a rare breach of the unity seen in Poland since the crash, several hundred people gathered in Krakow late Tuesday chanting "Not in the Wawel" and waving banners marked "Is he fit to be a king?"
The conservative nationalist Kaczynski, in office since 2005, was a divisive figure at home and abroad, but the mood since his death has been one of grief across the political spectrum.
The crash has also brought a rapprochement between bitter foes Poland and
Russia, fuelled over the years by disagreements over the very massacre that
Kaczynski's delegation was on its way to commemorate.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has meanwhile personally taken charge of the crash probe and the country has made open displays of grief over the accident.
Russian investigators have pointed to pilot error, while air traffic controllers say the crew of Kaczynski's jet refused three times to heed advice to divert to another airport because of the fog.
The Russian controllers also suggested language barriers had contributed to the crash near the city of Smolensk. Investigators have ruled out a fire or explosion as the cause.
- AFP/jy
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