Literally overnight she has become the most talked-about face in Poland's presidential campaign, but First Lady Jolanta Kwasniewska is not even running for office in the country's October 9 presidential ballot.
Widely regarded as Poland's uncrowned queen, Kwasniewska donned a new hat Wednesday as campaign chief for presidential contender Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, the current speaker of parliament.
Having spent two presidential terms at the side of her husband Aleksander, commentators note Kwasniewska has cultivated the image of an impeccably elegant, intelligent and poised woman running her own high-profile charity.
She has also become the envy of her fellow countrywomen over the last decade and was herself tipped as the run-away presidential winner by polls some two years ago. Kwasniewska, however, backed out saying she found the corruption-plagued political climate in Poland repugnant.
Aside from injecting glamour into what was shaping up to be an otherwise lack-lustre campaign, analysts note her political endorsement is worth its weight in gold.
"I'll do everything for him to win," Kwasniewska vowed Wednesday as she officially assumed the role of Cimoszewicz's campaign guru.
Cimoszewicz, 54, stormed two separate opinion polls this week racing ahead of Poland's top heart surgeon and Warsaw's mayor. He said the surprise result convinced him to enter the race he had previously shunned.
A professor of law, Cimoszewicz is the only candidate with extensive political experience in several senior political offices. He previously served as Poland's prime minister in 1996-7, justice minister as well as foreign minister before taking up the post of speaker of parliament earlier this year.
Cimoszewicz is running as an independent candidate and has vowed integrity at home and "wise" foreign policy abroad.
In practice, however, he remains closely allied to the ex-communist Democratic Left Alliance (SLD). The party has suffered a severe decline in popularity after key members were implicated in a string of high profile corruption scandals. Analysts believe the link could prove a serious political liability.
A heart surgeon, Warsaw's mayor, a feisty female business leader and a dark horse from Canada are among the other 17 candidates lined up in the starting gate.
Poland's first post-communist democratically elected president, Solidarity legend and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Lech Walesa, is also considering whether to run yet again.
The vote will be the fourth democratic presidential election since the demise of communism in 1989 and will produce a successor to two-term President Aleksander Kwasniewski, banned under the constitution for running for a third term.
In 1995, Kwasniewski won the office from then incumbent Walesa.
With Poles "deeply frustrated" by record high joblessness and a political class embroiled in corruption scandals and mud-slinging, expert political commentator Professor Edmund Wnuk-Lipinski believes voters will be looking for a candidate of integrity who can forge consensus and national unity.
Campaigning under the slogan "A heart for Poland", the country's top heart surgeon, the 67-year-old Senator and Professor Zbigniew Religa, had been an early favourite on opinion polls, prior to Cimoszewicz's appearance on the scene.
Known for ambitious innovation in cardiosurgery, he has vowed to focus on reform of Poland's ailing health sector, boost education opportunities and job creation.
Recently under fire by human rights groups for his controversial ban on a gay pride parade in Warsaw, the city's Mayor Lech Kaczynski was the first to throw his hat in the presidential ring in March. Kaczynski, 56, is half of a political double-act with his identical twin brother Jaroslaw, leader of the right wing Law and Justice Party (PiS).
As children, the two starred as Jacek and Placek in the Polish children's film classic, "About Those Two Who Stole the Moon". Now both want to reinvent the double-act with Lech starring as president and Jaroslaw as prime minister after Poland's September 25 parliamentary election.
Kaczynski is campaigning on a law and order ticket focused on reform for Poland's overburdened and sluggish justice system. Although he and PiS backed E.U. entry, he recently applauded the failure of France and the Netherlands to ratify the E.U.'s proposed constitution, insisting the national constitutions of individual members suffice.
Recent opinion polls show both Religa and Kaczynski appear to be neck-and-neck in the race for the presidency.
Donald Tusk of the liberal and business-friendly Citizens' Platform (PO) is also running on a ticket of making Poland's civil service and state institutions - including the justice system - more user-friendly for average Poles. He ranks third or fourth in most polls.
Tusk is trailed by the renegade populist Andrzej Lepper, head of the Samoobrona (Self Defence) farmers' party. Marek Borowski of the left-wing Social Democracy of Poland (SDPl) is next in line according to most polls. Observers note his chances were significantly diminished by Cimoszewicz's arrival on the scene.
Head of Poland's employers' confederation Henryka Bochniarz is one of two women running for Poland's highest office. Bochniarz is running for the Democratic Party, a group forged largely by members of the defunct liberal Freedom Union.
Poland's right-wing Catholic nationalist League of Polish Families (LPR) is represented by candidate Maciej Giertych, while the Polish Peasant Party (PSL) has put up its leader Jaroslaw Kalinowski.
Perhaps the most colourful of the 18 declared candidates is the former leader of the mysterious "Party X", Stan Tyminski.
Tyminski first arrived on the Polish political scene rather bizarrely from Peru to defeat the respected Solidarity dissident intellectual Tadeusz Mazowiecki in the first round of voting in 1990, but lost the second round to Solidarity leader Lech Walesa.
After his defeat he founded the mysterious "Party X" which failed to gain popular backing. He also gained notoriety for carrying a black brief case he claimed was filled with files compromising Walesa and other politicians, but did not produce any proof.
He recently arrived from Toronto, Canada, vowing to run for president again and win.
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