Career
Opposition activities before 1989
He graduated from the Cyprian Norwid Secondary School of General Education No. 24 in Warsaw. As a secondary school student he was involved in opposition activities and took part in some demonstrations, for example, during the March Protests in 1968. He was arrested for the first time in December 1971.
He took part in relief actions for injured workers of Radom and Ursus in 1976. He worked with the Worker Protection Committee and the Movement for Defence of Human and Civil Rights. and organised patriotic demonstrations.
He worked as a printer, journalist, distributor and publisher of the underground press. In the years of opposition activities he was frequently arrested and victimised. During martial law he was interned.
He defended his MA thesis at the Faculty of History at the University of Warsaw. In 1977 he worked in Zespół Prasy Pax, and in 1980-1981 at the Social Research Centre NSZZ Solidarność (Independent and Self-governing Trade Union Solidarność) of the Mazovian Region. From September 1982 he worked as an editor of the independent, underground magazine “ABC” (Adriatic – Baltic – Black Sea).
During martial law and after, until 1989, he taught history at the secondary theological school in Niepokalanów.
National activities after 1989
Parliament
From 1991 to 2010 he was Member of Parliament for consecutive terms in the Sejm. He worked in the Commission for Poles Overseas and in the Commission for National Defence, and then in the Commission for Foreign Affairs.
From 1997 to 2000 he presided over the Sejm Commission for National Defence. From 2001 he was deputy chairman of the Sejm Commission for National Defence and a member of the Sejm Commission for Foreign Affairs.
In October 2005 he was appointed Deputy Marshal of the 5th Sejm. In November 2007 he was appointed Marshal of the 6th Sejm.
He resigned from his mandate on July 8th, 2010 after being elected President of the Republic of Poland.
Government
In 1989-1990 he was director of the Aleksander Hall office in the Office of the Council of Ministers.
In 1990-1993 – in the governments of Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Jan Krzysztof Bielecki and Hanna Suchocka – he was Deputy Minister of National Defence for Social and Educational Affairs.
In 2000-2001 he was Minister of National Defence in the government of Jerzy Buzek.
Party
He was a member of the Freedom Union, in which he served as general secretary. Then he joined the Conservative People’s Party, where he was deputy chairman.
In 2001 he became a member of Civic Platform, in which he served as chairman for the Mazovian Region. In June 2006 he was appointed Deputy Chairman of the party.
President of the Republic of Poland
As a result of the tragic death of President Lech Kaczyński in the Smoleńsk catastrophe on April 10th, 2010, Bronisław Komorowski, as Marshal of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland, became Acting President of the Republic of Poland under the regulations of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland. He held this function until July 8th, 2010 when he resigned as Marshal of the Sejm.
He won the presidential election on July 4th, 2010. He took office by taking an oath in front of the National Assembly on August 6th, 2010.