( CNN ) -- At 51 years of age , Polish prime minister Donald Tusk has come a long way . As part of the Kashubian minority living in the Gdansk Region , he was born to working-class parents -- his father a carpenter and his mother a nurse . Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk was elected in November 2007 . As a student of History at the University of Gdansk in the late 1970s , a period of growing discontent with the Communist regime in Poland , he became actively involved in the creation of the opposition Students ' Solidarity Committee . This was founded in reaction to the murder of student activist Stanislaw Pyjas by the State Security Service . Despite his anti-communist activities , he successfully finished his studies in 1980 and joined the Independent Solidarity Trade Union movement . When the Communists imposed martial law in 1981 he continued with his underground activities , writing pamphlets about the ideas of liberal economist Friedrich Hayek and the concept of private property . His heroes became former U.S. president Ronald Reagan and British prime minister Margaret Thatcher . With the fall of Communism in 1989 , the Solidarity Movement splintered . Lech Walesa , the former Solidarity Leader was elected President , while Tusk went on to co-found the KLD ( Liberal and Democratic Congress Party ) with other well-known figures . The Party stood for among other things : free market economy , privatization , individual freedom of Polish citizens and Polish accession to the EU . The following year , during the 1991 Parliamentary elections , the KLD won 37 seats in the lower house of the Polish Parliament . Not being able to follow up on their success in the 1993 elections , the KLD merged with the larger Democratic Union Party ( UD ) to form a new party called Freedom Union ( UW ) . Tusk soon became Deputy Chairman and in the 1997 elections , he was voted into the Senate . In 2001 , Tusk formed the Civic Platform Party ( PO ) , winning seats in that year 's parliamentary elections and becoming Deputy Speaker in parliament . But the Civic Platform was not able to sustain its success in the 2005 elections . Tusk and his party lost both the presidential and parliamentary elections to Lech Kacczynski 's PiS ( Law and Justice Party ) . This setback was not to last as Tusk triumphed over Jaroslaw Kaczynsky 's PiS in the October 2007 elections and became prime minister of Poland . Tusk 's economic policies are pro-business : less bureaucratic hurdles and state interference making it easier for entrepreneurs to start businesses . He is also trying to woo back more than a million Poles who left the country to work in other European Union countries after it joined the EU in 2004 . Tusk is a keen footballer , viewed in his youth as a promising striker . He is married to historian Malgorzata and has two children , Kasia and Michal .
Involved in anti-communist activities as a student in Gdansk . In 1989 Tusk co-founded the KLD ( Liberal and Democratic Congress Party ) with Lech Walesa, who was then president of Poland. Became prime minister of Poland after 1997 parliamentary election .