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1989 Polish parliamentary election

← 1985 4 June 1989 (first round) 18 June 1989 (second round) 1991 →
Sejm
All 460 seats in the Sejm161 seats up for free election 231 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	62.32%
Party Leader Seats Seats reserved for the Patriotic Movement for National Rebirth (299) Polish United Workers' Party Wojciech Jaruzelski 173 United People's Party Roman Malinowski 76 Alliance of Democrats Tadeusz Witold Młyńczak [pl] 27 PAX Association Zenon Komender [pl] 10 Christian-Social Union [pl] Kazimierz Morawski [pl] 8 Polish Catholic Social Association [pl] Wiesław Gwiżdż [pl] 5 Freely-contested seats (161) Solidarity Citizens' Committee Lech Wałęsa 161 This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below.
Senate
All 100 seats in the Senate 51 seats needed for a majority
Party Vote % Seats Solidarity Citizens' Committee 71.28 99 Patriotic Movement for National Rebirth 28.72 1 This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below. Sejm results by constituency Government before Government after election Rakowski cabinet PZPR—ZSL—SD (Communist regime) Mazowiecki cabinet Solidarity—ZSL—SD (Contract Sejm)

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 Solidarity 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

You can help expand this section with text translated from the corresponding article in Polish. (May 2024) Click for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Polish article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Misplaced Pages. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 348 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Polish Misplaced Pages article at ]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|pl|Wybory parlamentarne w Polsce w 1989 roku#Rejestracja kandydatów i kampania wyborcza}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Misplaced Pages:Translation.

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 campaigning 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 [pl], 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

Party or alliance				Constituency (competitive)			Consitutency (reserved)			National list			Total seats
				Votes	%	Seats	Votes	%	Seats	Votes	%	Seats
	Patriotic Movement for National Rebirth		Polish United Workers' Party				22,734,348	59.26	156	132,845,385	47.19	17	173
			United People's Party				8,865,102	23.11	67	74,921,230	26.62	9	76
			Democratic Party				3,961,124	10.32	24	24,814,903	8.82	3	27
			PAX Association				1,216,681	3.17	7	24,269,761	8.62	3	10
			Christian-Social Union				907,901	2.37	6	16,601,896	5.90	2	8
			Polish Catholic-Social Association				681,199	1.78	4	8,029,911	2.85	1	5
			Independents	6,591,014	28.71	0							0
	Solidarity Citizens' Committee		Independents	16,369,237	71.29	161							161
Total				22,960,251	100.00	161	38,366,355	100.00	264	281,483,086	100.00	35	460
Total votes				17,053,171	–
Registered voters/turnout				27,362,313	62.32
Source:

By round

By constituency

Senate

Party		First round			Second round			Total seats
		Votes	%	Seats	Votes	%	Seats
	Solidarity Citizens' Committee	20,755,312	71.28	92	959,927	61.19	7	99
	Patriotic Movement for National Rebirth	8,364,055	28.72	0	608,946	38.81	1	1
Total		29,119,367	100.00	92	1,568,873	100.00	8	100
Registered voters/turnout		27,362,313	–		3,104,127	–
Source: Sejm (first round), Sejm (second round)

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

1. Following the election, Czesław Kiszczak of PZPR was designated Prime Minister by the Communist regime of President Wojciech Jaruzelski, however in a surprising move the satellite parties ZSL and SD, together forming 1/5th of the Sejm, broke away and gave support to Solidarity which won 1/3rd of seats in the Sejm - all it was allowed to contest - and Tadeusz Mazowiecki was designated and sworn in as Prime Minister.

References

1. ^ Paulina Codogni (2012). Wybory czerwcowe 1989 roku. Polish Institute of National Remembrance. p. 297. ISBN 978-83-7629-342-4.
2. ^ Ronald J. Hill (1 July 1992). Beyond Stalinism: Communist political evolution. Psychology Press. p. 51. ISBN 978-0-7146-3463-0. Retrieved 4 June 2011.
3. ^ Geoffrey Pridham (1994). Democratization in Eastern Europe: domestic and international perspectives. Psychology Press. p. 176. ISBN 978-0-415-11063-1. Retrieved 4 June 2011.
4. ^ Olav Njølstad (2004). The last decade of the Cold War: from conflict escalation to conflict transformation. Psychology Press. p. 59. ISBN 978-0-7146-8539-7. Retrieved 4 June 2011.
5. ^ Atsuko Ichijō; Willfried Spohn (2005). Entangled identities: nations and Europe. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 166. ISBN 978-0-7546-4372-2. Retrieved 4 June 2011.
6. Andy Zebrowski Turning the tables?
7. Pushing back the curtain. BBC News, Poland 1984 - 1988
8. Andrzej Grajewski, Second August
9. ^ (in Polish) Wojciech Roszkowski: Najnowsza historia Polski 1980–2002. Warszawa: Świat Książki, 2003, ISBN 83-7391-086-7 p.102
10. ^ Norman Davies (May 2005). God's Playground: 1795 to the present. Columbia University Press. pp. 503–504. ISBN 978-0-231-12819-3. Retrieved 4 June 2011.
11. ^ Marjorie Castle (28 November 2005). Triggering Communism's Collapse: Perceptions and Power in Poland's Transition. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 146–148. ISBN 978-0-7425-2515-3. Retrieved 4 June 2011.
12. ^ Marjorie Castle (28 November 2005). Triggering Communism's Collapse: Perceptions and Power in Poland's Transition. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 154–115. ISBN 978-0-7425-2515-3. Retrieved 4 June 2011.
13. ^ Marjorie Castle (28 November 2005). Triggering Communism's Collapse: Perceptions and Power in Poland's Transition. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 168–169. ISBN 978-0-7425-2515-3. Retrieved 4 June 2011.
14. ^ Wygłosowana niepodległość, polityka.pl
15. ^ Paulina Codogni (2012). Wybory czerwcowe 1989 roku. Polish Institute of National Remembrance. pp 189-90. ISBN 978-83-7629-342-4.
16. ^ Wybory czerwcowe (June elections), Antoni Dudek [pl], encyklopedia-solidarnosci.pl
17. ^ "DTIC ADA335767: JPRS Report East Europe". May 11, 1989 – via Internet Archive.
18. "DTIC ADA335767: JPRS Report East Europe". May 11, 1989 – via Internet Archive.
19. "DTIC ADA335767: JPRS Report East Europe". May 11, 1989 – via Internet Archive.
20. Jakub Karpiński (2001). Trzecia niepodległość. Najnowsza historia Polski. Świat Książki [pl]. p 48. ISBN 83-7311-156-5.
21. "DTIC ADA335767: JPRS Report East Europe". May 11, 1989 – via Internet Archive.
22. ^ "DTIC ADA335767: JPRS Report East Europe". May 11, 1989 – via Internet Archive.
23. ^ "DTIC ADA335767: JPRS Report East Europe". May 11, 1989 – via Internet Archive.
24. ^ "Document Details". isap.sejm.gov.pl. Retrieved 2024-08-20.
25. ^ "Document Details". isap.sejm.gov.pl. Retrieved 2024-08-20.
26. ^ "DTIC ADA335767: JPRS Report East Europe". May 11, 1989 – via Internet Archive.
27. "Uchwała Rady Państwa z dnia 12 czerwca 1989 r. w sprawie ponownego głosowania do mandatów nie obsadzonych z krajowej listy wyborczej". isap.sejm.gov.pl. Retrieved 2024-08-21.
28. Paulina Codogni (2012). Wybory czerwcowe 1989 roku. Polish Institute of National Remembrance. p. 116. ISBN 978-83-7629-342-4.
29. Samuel P. Huntington (1991). The third wave: democratization in the late twentieth century. University of Oklahoma Press. p. 177. ISBN 978-0-8061-2516-9. Retrieved 4 June 2011.
30. Marjorie Castle (28 November 2005). Triggering Communism's Collapse: Perceptions and Power in Poland's Transition. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 189. ISBN 978-0-7425-2515-3. Retrieved 4 June 2011.
31. ^ Piotr Wróbel, Rebuilding Democracy in Poland, 1989-2004, in M. B. B. Biskupski; James S. Pula; Piotr J. Wrobel (25 May 2010). The Origins of Modern Polish Democracy. Ohio University Press. pp. 273–275. ISBN 978-0-8214-1892-5. Retrieved 4 June 2011.
32. ^ George Sanford (2002). Democratic government in Poland: constitutional politics since 1989. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 55. ISBN 978-0-333-77475-5. Retrieved 4 June 2011.
33. Polish National Electoral Commission report on the results of 4 June 1989 legislative election, published on 8 June 1989, Retrieved 23 September 2015
34. ^ "Obwieszczenie Państwowej Komisji Wyborczej z dnia 8 czerwca 1989 r. o wynikach głosowania i wynikach wyborów do Sejmu Polskiej Rzeczypospolitej Ludowej przeprowadzonych dnia 4 czerwca 1989 r." isap.sejm.gov.pl. Retrieved 2019-11-20.
35. "Obwieszczenie Państwowej Komisji Wyborczej z dnia 8 czerwca 1989 r. o wynikach głosowania i wynikach wyborów do Senatu Polskiej Rzeczypospolitej Ludowej przeprowadzonych dnia 4 czerwca 1989 r."
36. "Obwieszczenie Państwowej Komisji Wyborczej z dnia 20 czerwca 1989 r. o wynikach ponownego głosowania i wynikach wyborów do Senatu Polskiej Rzeczypospolitej Ludowej przeprowadzonych dnia 18 czerwca 1989 r."
37. Sarotte, Mary Elise (7 October 2014). The Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall. New York City: Basic Books. p. 23. ISBN 9780465064946.
38. Arista Maria Cirtautas (1997). The Polish solidarity movement: revolution, democracy and natural rights. Psychology Press. p. 205. ISBN 978-0-415-16940-0. Retrieved 4 June 2011.

v t e Elections and referendums in Poland
Presidential elections	1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2025
Parliamentary elections	1919 1922 1928 1930 1935 1938 1947 1952 1957 1961 1965 1969 1972 1976 1980 1985 1989 1991 1993 1997 2001 2005 2007 2011 2015 2019 2023 Next
Local elections	1916–17 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1929 1933–34 1936 1938–39 1954 1958 1961 1965 1969 1973 1976 1980 1984 1988 1990 1994 1998 2002 2006 2010 2014 2018 2024
European elections	2004 2009 2014 2019 2024
Referendums	1946 1987 1996 1997 2003 2015 2023
Silesian Sejm elections	1922 1930 (May) 1930 (Nov) 1935
See also: Elections in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth

• 1989 elections in Europe
• 1989 elections in Poland
• Parliamentary elections in Poland
• Solidarity (Polish trade union)
• June 1989 events in Europe
• Elections in the Polish People's Republic