The Party of Regions (, PR) was a left-wing Polish non-parliamentary political party created in November 2007 and registered in February 2008. The Party of Regions was created by former members of Self-Defence and the Democratic Left Alliance after the parliamentary election in 2007, when Self-Defence support collapsed to far less than the 5% electoral threshold giving them no seats in the new legislature. Founders of the grouping included Krzysztof Filipek, Danuta Hojarska and Bolesław Borysiuk. For failure to disclose their financial records for the year 2015, on 16 January 2017 the party was struck off from the register of political parties.
According to the founders' declaration, the party was to be governed decentralistically, respecting the decisions of the field authorities and recognising the supremacy of the congress over the party board. In October 2008, Party of Regions activists linked to agriculture announced the establishment of the Trade Union of Agriculture and Rural Areas "Regions", which was formed a month later. (led, among others, by Renata Beger). Danuta Hojarska and Krzysztof Filipek left the party after some time. The party initially cooperated with (mainly national) right-wing parties, but then became an ally of the SLD. The party described itself as the "patriotic left".
The party strongly supported regionalism and wanted to revive local and regional traditions in Poland, as well as promote and encourage regional patriotism. The party envisioned a decentralised Poland full of "regional, small homelands", advocating a strongly decentralised, regionalised structure. The Party of Regions argued that Poland was too centralised and believed that poor Polish regions were being exploited by wealthier ones as cheap labour. The party's aim was to develop and invest in the poorest regions and make them seft-sufficient rather than dependent on bailouts from the wealthier regions. The power of national government was to be significantly reduced and the regions were to act as self-sovereign entities that would cooperate with each other on the basis of equal partnerships and "solidarity-based" support.
History The electoral defeat of Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland resulted in a significant reduction in party membership, both in the regions and among the well-known politicians of the hitherto dominating party. Krzysztof Filipek, hitherto deputy chairman of Self-Defence, parted ways with the party in 2007 by forming the Party of Regions.
The founders of the new party believed that the party of Andrzej Lepper was incapable of "incapable of post-election reflection and shows no will to change its image". The main goal of the Party of Regions was to create a party free of "politically and morally compromised persons". Because those who defected to the Party of Regions believed that Self-Defence was too centralised, the principle of Party of Regions' functioning was to be intra-party democracy and respect for the need for discussion before every decision was taken.
The defections from Self-Defence to Party of Regions varied heavily from region to region. In the Pomeranian Voivodeship, out of about 1500 members, 90% defected to the Party of Regions, forcing the local Self-Defence assembly to dissolve the party structure in the region. This was in stark contrast to Lublin Voivodeship, where the party only had 265 members by 2008. The new party also devastated the regional structure of Self-Defence in Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, where Self-Defence membership fell from 1500 to 30. The founder of PR, Filipek, strongly emphasised that his party will be organised in a much more decentralised and democratic manner than Self-Defence, stressing that decisions would be made "at the bottom, in the districts of the provinces". The party was determined to decisively move away from the style of governance that existed in Self-Defence.
In December 2007, the party started cooperating with agrarian trade unions, and created the Farmers' Trade Union, a decision that was announced by Krzysztof Filipek, the chairman of the Party of Regions. Filipek stressed that new trade union is "not created for the party and the leadership will not overlap here", referring to the situation in trade unions associated with Self-Defence, where the head of both the party and the farmers' union was Andrzej Lepper. The trade union was created to pressure the Minister of Agriculture Marek Sawicki, believed to have been neglecting the interests of Polish farmers.
In the 2009 European Parliament election in Poland, the party ran jointly with, among others, League of Polish Families, Forward Poland, Piast Faction, Libertas Poland, Christian National Union and the Organisation of the Polish Nation - Polish League as part of the Libertas Committee, which did not reach the electoral threshold. Among the candidates of the Party of Regions, the best result was achieved by chairman Bolesław Borysiuk (1310 votes), while other party activists received the support of no more than a few hundred voters.
On 27 April 2010, the party's National Executive Committee called on party supporters and sympathisers to support the candidacy of Grzegorz Napieralski from Democratic Left Alliance in the 2010 Polish presidential election. The party stated: "The decision to support Grzegorz Napieralski was decisively influenced by the fact that he is a representative of the Polish patriotic left, effectively working towards goals that are important for the entire left-wing formation, and a representative of the young generation, striving to make the vision of a fair and evenly developed Poland a reality". In the second round, the party did not support any of the candidates.
Following the results of the election, the party congratulated Bronisław Komorowski on his victory in the election and congratulated Grzegorz Napieralski, whom the party endorsed, on achieving a relatively high number of votes. The party praised Napieraski as the candidate "of the modern, young, patriotic left". The party encouraged Komorowski to change his stance on "the future and place of the modern left in Poland". The party also praised Komorowski for recognising the negative consequences of privatisation and moving away from his plans to privatise health services. The party closed its statement by advising the president to address rural and youth poverty.
In May 2010, the party created its youth wing, Youth Section of the Party of Regions (), which declared that "as young people, we have a special right to demand equal opportunities and equal treatment of the development needs of the regions - our small homelands". The party also participated in the International Workers' Day with several other left-wing parties, proclaiming an informal political front that would bring back political left into relevance and prevent the apparent rightwards shift of Polish politics. Members of the joint front with Party of Regions were SLD, Social Democracy of Poland, Labour Union, Polish Socialist Party, Reason Party, 8th March Women Alliance, Greens 2004 and Edward Gierek's Economic Revival Movement.
In June 2010, the party mobilised its ranks and joined with associated agrarian trade unions in order to aid the victims of the 2010 Central European floods in Poland. The party participated in the relief effort and called for other parties and associations to organise help, declaring that Polish political parties "cannot remain indifferent to this misfortune".
Before the 2010 Polish local elections, activists of the Party of Regions decided to run jointly with the Democratic Left Alliance. On the basis of this agreement, Halina Molka, Alicja Lis, Józef Głowa, Anna Brózda and Tadeusz Urban were included on the Alliance's electoral lists as representatives of the Party of Regions. Both parties published a joint declaration explaining the reason behind their alliance: "Poland has wandered too far to the right. The values of the left are pushed to the margins of social debate. Instead, the ideas of the extreme right are resounding, bringing our country into disrepute and doing irreparable harm to it." Party of Regions candidates also ran on behalf of local committees. In total, the party fielded 467 candidates in the elections (in 9 provinces). They won a total of 82,818 votes, which gave 38 councillor seats in 7 voivodeships (8 seats in city councils, 14 in county councils and 16 in municipal councils). 1 party candidate was elected as mayor. All seats were won by candidates representing local committees.
In September 2010, the Party of Regions initatied a coalition with the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) and formed a joint electoral bloc in Mazovia. Afterwards, the representatives of PR came to an agreement with Democratic Left Alliance to sign a joint programmdeclaration, which took place during the inauguration of the election campaign at the turn of September and October. The Party of Regions put forward 52 of its members to SLD, who were to be included on the electoral lists for the sejmiks. Bolesław Borysiuk declared that a total of 500 members of the Party of Regions ran on SLD electoral lists. Describing the decision to cooperate so closely with the SLD, Borysiuk explained that the Party of Regions is the "patriotic left".
On 22 March 2011, the Party of Regions signed an agreement to run jointly in the 2011 Polish parliamentary election with the National Party of Retirees and Pensioners and the Democratic Association (the Paweł Piskorski part of the Democratic Party opposing the leadership). In the end, a joint run-off did not take place and several representatives of the Party of Regions found themselves on the SLD lists. The candidates for the Sejm were: Anna Brózda in the Katowice district, Marian Curyło in the Kielce district and Bogdan Solarz in the Kraków district. Party chairman Bolesław Borysiuk became the SLD candidate for the Senate in the Lublin district. None of the Party of Regions activists gained a seat in parliament.
On 12 October 2013, the Party of Regions and its activist ZZRiOW "Regions" co-founded the Social Agreement "Zmiana" together with Polish Left, Polish Socialist Party and the Movement of Working People. The PPS (which entered into an alliance with the Green Party) was later replaced in "Change" by the RP Pensioners' Party. 'Change' organisations did not participate in the 2014 European Parliament election in Poland.
During the 2014 Polish local elections, the Party of Regions participated in the SLD-Left Together coalition; its activists were, among others, on the lists for provincial assemblies.
On 18 April 2015, the grouping signed a programme agreement under the name Alternative for Poland together with the Polish Left and the nascent Zmiana party (Polish Left later formed an alliance with other parties). In the 2015 Polish parliamentary election, these parties did not run.
In its final years, the party also participated in a joint conference of Polish left-wing parties organised by the Progress Forum. The conference included parties such as the SLD, PPS, Labour Union, Party of Regions as well as other left-wing associatins and foundations. The party signed a joint ideological declaration, stating commitment to left-wing values defined as the ideals of "social justice, a social market economy, self-government, the idea of a secular state". The statement also included heavy criticism of neoliberalism, and the declaration that "the left should criticise the historical policy of the right and respond with its own narrative concerning the past", especially "the attitude to the achievements of People's Poland".
As a result of failing to submit a financial report for 2015, on 16 January 2017 the Party of Regions was deleted from the register of political parties.
Structure and activists