Throughout his political career, he has not been not afraid to appeal to populist sentiments. As mayor of Warsaw, he twice banned gay parades and spoke in support of reintroducing the death penalty.
He was elected as Poland's president in 2005 as candidate of the Law and Justice Party.
During the campaign, Mr Kaczynski insisted Poles needed a president who would stand up for their interests. 
He said post-communist Poland, often called the "Third Republic", needed radical transformation into a "Fourth Republic", based on social justice and a strong state.
The Law and Justice party, which stresses the traditional values of the Roman Catholic Church, was founded by him and his twin brother, Jaroslaw, in 2001.
The brothers shot to fame at the age of 12 as stars in the film "Two boys who stole the moon".
Lech followed his brother into the anti-government movement in the late 1970s and served as an adviser to the strike committee at the Gdansk shipyard during the August 1980 Solidarity-led protests.
The brothers found themselves outside mainstream politics in the early 1990s after falling out with the Solidarity leader, by now Polish president, Lech Walesa.
Following the 2005 election, Poland had two Kaczynskis holding the reins of power - Lech as president and Jaroslaw as prime minister.
Since 2007, however, President Kaczynski has had to work with Donald Tusk, who was his defeated rival in the presidential poll two years earlier.
He asked Mr Tusk to form a government after the victory of his centre-right Civic Platform in elections in October 2007.
Under the Polish constitution, the president has fewer powers than the prime minister, but has a significant say in foreign policy.
Mr Kaczynski, 60, is married with one daughter.
His father was a World War II resistance fighter.
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