It is not yet clear if both bodies -- that of Kaczorowski and the other unnamed male fatality -- were buried in corresponding graves. What is clear is that the identification of passengers' remains was less than accurate in the hours and days following the fatal crash.

The Polish government has tried its best to soften the political damage of the exhumations. In late September, Prime Minister Donald Tusk stood before the Polish parliament (Sejm) and apologized to the victims' families for the incorrect identification of their loved ones, and said he took full responsibility for the Polish state's mistake.

This was in response to the exhumations of Anna Walentynowicz, one of the founders and heroes of the country's Solidarity movement of the 1980s, and Teresa Walewska-Przyjalkowska, a scientist and well-known social activist. It wasn't long before officials discovered that both of those bodies had been wrongly identified, too.

The remains of Walentynowicz and Walewska-Przyjalkowska were re-buried in ceremonies held on September 28 and October 2, respectively.

Tusk is no doubt hoping that these exhumations will be the last. However, they probably won't be. Military prosecutors say that two further exhumations will be carried out before the end of this year. There have already been seven such exhumations to-date. A leading Polish newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, has reported that the final total for the exhumations may reach 15.

In an extremely Catholic country, supporters of the conservative opposition's Law & Justice party are seeing the "mis-burials" of well-known figureheads -- now martyrs to many -- as an abomination.

Law & Justice leader Jarosław Kaczynski -- the twin brother of deceased president Lech Kaczynski -- has gone so far as to suggest that the Smolensk tragedy was no accident. Russian conspiracy theories have long circulated among Law & Justice supporters.

All of this comes at a very delicate time for Tusk's ruling Civic Platform party and its coalition partners, which holds a slender four-seat majority in a 460-seat parliament.

The botched burials may not threaten to topple Tusk, but Law & Justice is gaining ground. According to one recent poll, Civic Platform now trails Law & Justice by six points. That's a sizeable turnaround considering that Tusk's party garnered 39 percent of the vote in last year's parliamentary election, 10 points clear of Law & Justice.

On Tuesday, the conservative newspaper Rzeczpospolita ran a story claiming that traces of explosive material had been found amongst the wreckage of the Tupolev-154, the ill-fated aircraft that carried President Kaczynski and his entire entourage.

The accusation prompted the living Kaczynski to declare: "I think that it is true." He later told reporters that "Tusk is a man who has a rather vague idea of democracy," comparing him to Poland's Communist-era leader General Jaruzelski. The barbs were personal and nasty. On Wednesday however, Rzeczpospolita retracted the story, saying that it had "made a mistake."