Aleksander Kwaśniewski ( ; born November 15, 1954) is a Polish politician who served as the President of Poland from 1995 to 2005. He was born in Białogard, and during the communist era he was active in the communist Socialist Union of Polish Students (Socjalistyczny Związek Studentów Polskich) and was sports minister in the communist government in 1980s. He was a leader of the left-wing Social Democracy of the Republic of Poland, successor to the former ruling Polish United Workers Party, and later of the Democratic Left Alliance.
Kwaśniewski was elected president in 1995, defeating the incumbent, Lech Wałęsa. He was re-elected to a second and final term as president in 2000 in a decisive first-round victory. His term ended on December 23, 2005, when he handed over power to his elected successor, conservative Lech Kaczyński.
In 1979 he married lawyer Jolanta Kwaśniewska (née Konty). Together they have one daughter, Aleksandra Kwaśniewska, who was born in 1981.
Some of the English-language press reports that Kwaśniewski has sometimes identified himself as an atheist although in the Polish-language press he identifies himself as an agnostic.
