1989 Polish parliamentary election

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 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. Most crucially, the election served as a litmus test showing how extremely anti-government the attitude of the nation was. 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 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. As a result, later that year, the regime decided to negotiate with the opposition, 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.

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 country-wide 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. 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 less educated 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 Solidairty was expected to lose.

Participating parties

Member parties of the Patriotic Movement for National Rebirth

Opposition parties

Electoral System

The Sejm was elected using a two-round multiple non-transferable vote system. 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. 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 Solidarity candidates), 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.

Candidate selection and campaign

Solidarity

The Solidarity campaign made use of how-to-vote cards that included only the names of the Solidarity candidates, with strikethrough lines taking the place of the other candidates' names. Although the how-to-vote cards concerned only those seats which Solidarity was allowed to contest, the Solidarity campaign also included some degree of campainging against government candidates on the national list.

On 8 April 1989, the Solidarity Citizens' Committee decided it would field only one candidate for each available seat, to prevent vote-splitting. The list of candidates was determined centrally by Solidarity leadership, rather than nominated from local branches. Lech Wałęsa chose not to field his own candidacy, fearing that his chances of winning a seat were low and that the ensuing personal loss would carry with it a loss of authority for all Solidarity MPs.

Results

The outcome was a major surprise to both the PZPR and Solidarity. Solidarity's electoral campaign was much more successful than expected. It won a landslide victory, winning all but one of the 100 seats in the Senate, and all of the contested seats in the Sejm; the sole seat in the Senate which was not won by Solidarity was won by Henryk Stokłosa, a non-partisan businessman aligned with the communists. Out of 35 seats in the country-wide list in which Solidarity was not allowed to compete, only one was gained by PZPR candidate (Adam Zieliński) and one by a ZSL satellite party candidate in the first round; none of the others attained the required 50% majority. The communists regained some seats during the second round, but the first round was highly humiliating to them, the psychological impact of it has been called "shattering". Government-supported candidates competing against Solidarity members gained 10 to 40% of votes in total, varying by constituency. Altogether, out of 161 seats eligible, Solidarity took all 161 (160 in the first round and one more in the second). In the 161 districts in which opposition candidates competed against pro-government candidates, the opposition candidates obtained 72% of the vote (16,369,237). Even in those seats which were reserved for the Communist-aligned parties, three candidates unofficially supported by Solidarity - Teresa Liszcz and Władysław Żabiński of the ZSL and Marian Czerwiński of the PZPR - defeated their own party's "mainstream" candidates and won seats in the Sejm.

While Solidarity having secured the 35% of seats available to it, the remaining 65% was divided between the PZPR and its satellite parties (37.6% to PZPR, 16.5% to ZSL, 5.8% to SD, with 4% distributed between small communist-aligned Catholic parties, PAX and UChS). The distribution of seats among the PZPR and its allies was known beforehand.

Voter turnout was surprisingly low: only 62.7% in the first round and 25% in the second. The second round, with the exception of one district, was a contest between two most popular pro-government candidates. This explains low turnout in the second round as pro-opposition voters (the majority of the electorate) had limited interest in these races; however, Solidarity gave its endorsement to 55 candidates of pro-government parties, including 21 from the PZPR, who ran in opposition to their own party's leadership, and encouraged its supporters to vote for them.

Sejm

By round

By constituency

Senate

By voivodeship

Aftermath

The magnitude of the Communist coalition's defeat was so great that there were initially fears that either the PZPR or the Kremlin would annul the results. However, PZPR general secretary Wojciech Jaruzelski allowed the results to stand. He and his colleagues felt secure with the 65% of the seats it was guaranteed for itself and its traditional allies. On 19 July the Sejm elected Jaruzelski as president by only one vote. In turn, he nominated General Czesław Kiszczak for prime minister; they intended for Solidarity to be given a few token positions for appearances. However, this was undone when Solidarity's leaders convinced the PZPR's longtime satellite parties, the ZSL and SD (some of whose members already owed a debt to Solidarity for endorsing them during the second round) to switch sides and support a Solidarity-led coalition government. The PZPR, which had 37.6% of the seats, suddenly found itself in a minority. Abandoned by Moscow, Kiszczak resigned on 14 August. With no choice but to appoint a Solidarity member as prime minister, on 24 August Jaruzelski appointed Solidarity activist Tadeusz Mazowiecki as head of a Solidarity-led coalition, ushering a brief period described as "Your president, our prime minister".

The elected parliament was known as the Contract Sejm, from the "contract" between the Solidarity and the communist government which made it possible in the first place.

Although the elections were not entirely democratic they paved the way for the Sejm's approval of Mazowiecki's cabinet on 13 September and a peaceful transition to democracy, which was confirmed after the presidential election of 1990 (in which Lech Wałęsa replaced Jaruzelski as president) and the parliamentary elections of 1991.

On the international level, this election is seen as one of the major milestones in the fall of communism ("Autumn of Nations") in Central and Eastern Europe.

However, Solidarity did not stay in power long, and quickly fractured, resulting in it being replaced by other parties. In this context, the 1989 elections are often seen as the vote against communism, rather than for Solidarity.

See also

• History of Poland (1945–1989)
• History of Solidarity
• Thick line
• Balcerowicz plan

Notes

References