By Chris Borowski
WARSAW, Sept 23 (Reuters) - A maverick politician who uses provocative props like a dildo and pig's head to press home his message believes he could become Poland's kingmaker after next month's general election.
Support for the libertarian, anti-clerical party of Janusz Palikot -- who is lampooned by his critics as the court jester of Polish politics -- has climbed above the 5 percent threshold for entering parliament.
The Movement of Support for Palikot (RPP), as his new party is known, backs legalisation of marijuana and abortion, gay rights and ending compulsory religious education in schools, and it may have an influential role if the election is close.
"I will be a difficult coalition partner," Palikot, a former member of Prime Minister Donald Tusk's ruling Civic Platform (PO), said in an interview.
"I won't enter any coalition not ready to take radical steps, such as a complete overhaul of the educational system or a modernisation of the system of local government."
Opinion polls point to a tightening election race between Tusk's centrist PO and the right-wing, nationalist-minded Law and Justice (PiS) party of Jaroslaw Kaczynski.
Either party would expect to have to seek the support of at least one of the two or three parties that are projected to get into parliament.
Palikot is the former owner of one of Poland's leading vodka producers who once ran a parliamentary committee to cut red tape. He has liberal views on the economy but has focused in the election campaign on social issues such as the continued influence in Polish life of the Roman Catholic Church.
Candidates on RPP's election lists include a transsexual and a former priest who has become an outspoken critic of the Catholic church.
Anti-establishment parties, many run by colourful leaders, have appeared on the political stage in several European countries in recent years, playing a key role in supporting the governments in Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden.
"MESSIAH OF THE LEFT"?
But Palikot chafes at comparisons with controversial populists such as the Netherlands' Geert Wilders, whose often anti-immigrant and euro-sceptic views have led to protests from other European capitals.
"I am absolutely not a nationalist," Palikot said. "If you wanted to compare us to a European party, it would probably be the Greens... We're definitely not like True Finns in Finland or anything like that."
One Polish weekly has put a half-naked Palikot, who has been gaining support at the expense of the post-communist SLD, with his arms spread out like Christ on the cross, dubbing him the 'Messiah of the Left'.
Unlike most of the protest parties in the European Union, Palikot supports greater European integration. He also calls for much closer cooperation with Germany, Poland's main trading partner, at the cost of the tight alliance with the United States.
The former businessman has angered many on the right of Polish politics with his relentless criticism of Kaczynski and of his identical twin brother, President Lech Kaczynski, who died in a plane crash in Russia last year.
Before the president's death, Palikot got into political hot water for calling him a boor and suggesting he drank too much.
"I think the Kaczynski brothers have harmed Poland... The conflict with Germany and other such moves hit at the heart of Polish interests," Palikot said.
Palikot said he stood by media stunts, including waving a rubber sex toy and a gun at a news conference to publicise a case of rape by a policeman, who ultimately received a jail sentence.
"I do not regret anything that I have done in the past. While the media wanted to make a taboo out of it, people reacted surprisingly well to my use of a phallic symbol," he said. (Editing by Gareth Jones and Robert Woodward)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
