Parliamentary elections were held in Poland on 4 June 1989 to elect members of the Sejm and the recreated Senate, with a second round on 18 June. They were the first free and fair elections in the country since the communist government abandoned its monopoly of power in April 1989 and the first elections in the Eastern Bloc that resulted in the communist government losing power.
Not all seats in the Sejm were allowed to be contested, but the resounding victory of the Solidarity opposition in the freely contested races (the rest of the Sejm seats and all of the Senate) paved the way to the end of communist rule in Poland. Solidarity won all of the freely contested seats in the Sejm, and all but one seat in the Senate, which was scored by a government-aligned nonpartisan candidate.Paulina Codogni (2012). Wybory czerwcowe 1989 roku. Polish Institute of National Remembrance. p. 297. ISBN 978-83-7629-342-4. Most crucially, the election served as evidence of widespread dissatisfaction with the government. In the aftermath of the election, Poland became the first country of the Eastern Bloc in which democratically elected representatives gained real power. Although the elections were not entirely democratic, they led to the formation of a non-communist government led by Tadeusz Mazowiecki and a peaceful transition to democracy in Poland and elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe.
Background In May and August 1988 massive waves of workers' strikes broke out in the Polish People's Republic. The strikes, as well as street demonstrations, continued throughout spring and summer, ending in early September 1988. These actions shook the communist regime of the country to such an extent that it decided to begin talking about recognising Solidarity (Polish: Solidarność), an "unofficial" labor union that subsequently grew into a political movement.Andy Zebrowski Turning the tables? As a result, later that year, the regime decided to negotiate with the opposition,Pushing back the curtain. BBC News, Poland 1984 - 1988 which opened the way for the 1989 Round Table Agreement. The second, much bigger wave of strikes (August 1988) surprised both the government and top leaders of Solidarity, who were not expecting actions of such intensity. These strikes were mostly organized by local activists, who had no idea that their leaders from Warsaw had already started secret negotiations with the communists.Andrzej Grajewski, Second August
An agreement was reached by the communist Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) and the Solidarity movement during the Round Table negotiations. The final agreement was signed on 4 April 1989, ending communist rule in Poland. As a result, real political power was vested in a newly created bicameral legislature (the Sejm, with the recreated Senate), whilst the office of president was re-established. Solidarity became a legitimate and legal political party: On 7 April 1989 the existing parliament changed the election law and changed the constitution (through the April Novelization), and on 17 April, the Supreme Court of Poland registered Solidarity. Soon after the agreement was signed, Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa travelled to Rome to be received by the Polish Pope John Paul II.
Perhaps the most important decision reached during the Round Table talks was to allow for partially free elections to be held in Poland. (A fully free election was promised "in four years"). All seats in the newly recreated Senate of Poland were to be elected democratically, as were 161 seats (35 percent of the total) in Sejm. The remaining 65% of the seats in the Sejm were reserved for the PZPR and its satellite parties (United People's Party (ZSL), Alliance of Democrats (SD), and communist-aligned Catholic parties). These seats were still technically elected, but only government-sponsored candidates were allowed to compete for them. In addition, all 35 seats elected via the national electoral list were reserved for the PZPR's candidates provided they gained a certain quota of support. This was to ensure that the most notable leaders of the PZPR were elected.
The outcome of the election was largely unpredictable, and pre-electoral opinion polls were inconclusive. After all, Poland had not had a truly fair election since the 1920s, so there was little precedent to go by. The last contested elections were those of 1947, in the midst of communist-orchestrated violent oppression and electoral fraud. This time, there would be open and relatively fair competition for many seats, both between communist and Solidarity candidates, and, in some cases, between various communist candidates. Although censorship was still in force, the opposition was allowed to campaign much more freely than before, thanks to a new newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, and the reactivation of Tygodnik Solidarność. Wojciech Roszkowski: Najnowsza historia Polski 1980–2002. Warszawa: Świat Książki, 2003, p.102 Solidarity was also given access to televised media, being allocated 23% of electoral time on Polish Television. There were also no restrictions on financial support. Although the Communists were clearly unpopular, there were no hard numbers as to how low support for them would actually fall. A rather flawed survey carried out in April, days after the Round Table Agreement was signed, suggested that over 60% of the surveyed wanted Solidarity to cooperate with the government. Another survey a week later, regarding the Senate elections, showed that 48% of the surveyed supported the opposition, 14% supported the communist government, and 38% were undecided. In such a situation, both sides faced another unfamiliar aspect - the electoral campaign. The communists knew they were guaranteed 65% of the seats, and expected a difficult but winnable contest; in fact they were concerned about a possibility of "winning too much" - they desired some opposition, which would serve to legitimize their government both internally and internationally. The communist government still had control over most major media outlets and employed sports and television celebrities as candidates, as well as successful local personalities. Some members of the opposition were worried that such tactics would gain enough votes from the more politically-disinterested segment of the population to give the communists the legitimacy that they craved. Only a few days before June 4, the party Central Committee was discussing the possible reaction of the Western world should Solidarity not win a single seat. At the same time, the Solidarity leaders were trying to prepare some set of rules for the non-party MPs in a communist-dominated parliament, as it was expected that the party would not win more than 20 seats. Solidarity was also complaining that the way electoral districts were drawn was not favourable towards it; indeed, the Council of State allocated more open seats beyond the minimum of one to constituencies where Solidarity was expected to lose.Wygłosowana niepodległość, polityka.pl
Participating parties
Member parties of the Patriotic Movement for National Rebirth Party Ideology Leader(s) Leader since Leader's seat Candidates Sejm (constituency) Sejm (national list) Senate PZPR Polish United Workers' Party Communism Wojciech Jaruzelski 18 October 1981 Did not run (candidate for President) 680Paulina Codogni (2012). Wybory czerwcowe 1989 roku. Polish Institute of National Remembrance. pp 189-90. ISBN 978-83-7629-342-4. 17 178Wybory czerwcowe (June elections), , encyklopedia-solidarnosci.pl ZSL United People's Party Agrarian socialism Roman Malinowski 1981 Ran under the National list (lost) 284 9 87 SD Alliance of Democrats Democratic socialism 18 April 1989 Ran under the National list (lost) 84 3 67
Opposition groups As the "leading role" of the Communist Party was not abolished at this time, all opposition candidates formally stood as independents. Party Ideology Leader(s) Leader since Leader's seat Candidates Sejm Senate KO "S" Solidarity Citizens' Committee Liberal democracyAnti-communism Lech Wałęsa 18 December 1988 Did not run 161 100 KPN Confederation of Independent Poland SanationismAnti-communism Leszek Moczulski 1 September 1979 Ran in (lost) 16 6 SP Christian-Democratic Labour Party Christian democracyPolitical Catholicism 12 February 1989 Ran in (lost) GRKK "S" Liberal democracyAnti-communism Andrzej Gwiazda April 1987 Did not run UPR Real Politics Union Classical liberalismLibertarianism Janusz Korwin-Mikke 14 November 1987 Ran for Senator in Wrocław Voivodeship (lost)
Electoral system The Sejm was elected using a two-round system, with multiple seats per constituency; however, this was not a true multiple non-transferable vote system due to the unusual system of reserving seats to parties in advance. The Council of State was responsible for drawing out constituencies, which would have between two and five seats. Each voter had multiple votes, one for each seat in the constituency, and each seat was elected on its own separate ballot.Jakub Karpiński (2001). Trzecia niepodległość. Najnowsza historia Polski. . p 48. ISBN 83-7311-156-5. In addition, up to 10% of the seats in the Sejm would be reserved to the national list; the final settled number of national list seats was 35.
In the constituencies, only the PZPR and its satellite parties were allowed to nominate candidates in their own name; Solidarity candidates had to formally run as independents. The seats in each constituency would be reserved to candidates of one of the PRON member parties or to independent candidates (a category which de facto also included opposition parties), based on an allocation predetermined by the Council of State "pursuant to the concluded roundtable agreement". The constituencies, as well as the seats within each constituency, were numbered in a single consecutive series. At least one seat in each constituency was guaranteed for independent candidates. Within each seat, the elections were multi-candidate, but only between candidates of the category to which the seat was reserved (for example, only PZPR candidates could run in the PZPR-reserved seats). Rather than making a mark next to the name of the candidate which he desired to vote for, a voter had to strike out the names of all other candidates; leaving two or more names unstruck would have spoiled the ballot.
The National list was elected in a similar format to previous Polish elections; voters were presented with a single slate of candidates, all belonging to the PZPR and its satellite parties; Solidarity was invited to submit candidates to the national list, but declined this invitation. However, unlike previous elections, voters could vote against individual candidates on this slate by striking out their name from the ballot, rather than having to reject the slate in its entirety. If a candidate's name was not struck out, a vote was presumed to be cast for him. To be elected, a candidate on the national list had to be supported by at least 50% of the vote. During the campaign, it was also ruled that writing an X over all the names in the National list ballot would count as a vote against all of them. The electoral law made no provision about what would happen in case a candidate is rejected; for that reason, in the second round of the election, new seats, having the same party reservations as the rejected national list candidates, were allocated to the constituencies.
The Senate was also elected using two-round multiple non-transferable vote under the same electoral law as the Sejm, albeit with modifications: Each voivodeship elected two Senators at-large (with the exception of Warsaw and Katowice voivodeships, which elected three), seats were open to all candidates running rather than being reserved to parties, and all the seats were elected on a single common ballot.
Candidate selection and campaign
Solidarity