Polish leader eyes quick election

POLAND’S acting president vowed to move swiftly to set an election date and remove uncertainty after the deaths of President Lech Kaczynski and dozens of other high-ranking officials in a plane crash.

The coffin of Kaczynski’s wife Maria was received by family members, top military officials and senior Catholic clergy at a sombre ceremony at Warsaw airport before being driven to the presidential palace to lie in state alongside her husband.

Thousands of Poles lined the 10-kilometre route to the city centre, showering the hearse carrying the popular first lady with flowers in a repeat of the moving procession that brought the president’s body home Sunday.