Vehemently homophobic and nationalist, the Roman Catholic twins have certainly engendered a new climate of fear in Poland in their short time in control, largely as a result of their paranoia about a "grey network" of former communists they believe to be at work in every corner of national life since the fall of Polish communism in 1989. They have also created an anti-corruption agency that takes its orders directly from the president: 500 hand-picked men assigned to defend what the brothers call their "fourth republic". When the agency men strike, arresting everyone from allegedly crooked politicians to surgeons suspected of taking bribes from patients, they do it on television, wearing masks and dressed head to toe in black.

Given all this, you might expect the outcome of this weekend's snap government election - called two years early because of the collapse of the rightwing coalition the prime minister has been leading - to be a foregone conclusion. But the situation turns out to be far from simple.