Candidate for Prime Minister and Law and Justice party chief Jaroslaw Kaczynski listens during a party meeting in Warsaw, Poland on Saturday, July 8, 2006. The governing party recommended Kaczynski to replace Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz as Poland's Prime Minister late Friday after Marcinkiewicz announced his intention to step down. [AP Photo]

Poland's governing party accepted the resignation Saturday of Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz and recommended party chairman Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the president's identical twin, to replace him.

The Law and Justice "party leadership put forward a proposal, and I accepted it," Kaczynski said, annoucing the moves at news conference. He called it "a natural situation for the head of the governing party to be prime minister."

He acknowledged that the party had weighed the possible difficulties in having twin brothers as president and prime minister.

"For various reasons, we came to the conclusion that, at this time, putting forward a different candidate, of which we have many good ones, would be a worse way out than recommending me."

Marcinkiewicz would become the Law and Justice candidate for Warsaw mayor in fall elections.

While Kaczynski called the mayoral vote "extremely important," it was still not immediately clear why Law and Justice was removing a popular prime minister whose approval rating has reached nearly 70 percent in some polls.

"Politics is a team game, and demands teamwork," Marcinkiewicz said. "Only in this way can we implement our program, and only this way can we change Poland."

Marcinkiewicz said he would formally submit his resignation Monday to President Lech Kaczynski, who would then find himself in the unusual position of asking his brother to form a new government.

The new government would face a confidence vote in parliament, and if successful would then be sworn in by the president.