Poland

P

Democratic Poland

In 1990 Solidarity split into two opposing groups, with one group supporting Wałęsa and the other supporting Mazowiecki. In November Wałęsa, Mazowiecki, and a maverick émigré millionaire, Stanisław Tymiński, ran in a presidential election. Mazowiecki was eliminated on the first ballot while Wałęsa won the runoff against Tymiński. Wałęsa was unclear about how to define his office, however. This led to an ambiguous distribution of presidential, prime ministerial, and parliamentary powers in Poland’s transitional “Little Constitution,” adopted in 1992. Post-Communist Poland thus suffered from a confused, unstable, and conflict-ridden political process. Proportional representation adopted for the 1991 legislative elections produced a Sejm composed of a dozen significant political parties. Between 1991 and 1993 Poland was governed by a succession of short-lived parliamentary coalitions.

Poland established or renewed diplomatic relations with the European Community (now the European Union), the republics of the former USSR, the Vatican, and Israel, and signed cooperation treaties with the newly unified Germany and a number of other European states. The country joined the Council of Europe and negotiated associate membership of the European Union. Full national sovereignty was regained in 1992 with the evacuation of most of the Soviet troops stationed in Poland. The withdrawal was completed in August 1993.

The September 1993 legislative elections simplified the party system by excluding all but the six parties who succeeded in gaining the minimum electoral threshold of 5 percent of the vote (8 percent for coalitions). The Communists’ successor parties, including the Social Democracy of the Polish Republic (SdRP) and the Polish People’s Party (PSL), benefited from popular dissatisfaction with the socioeconomic costs of the transformation and gained a large majority. Waldemar Pawlak, the PSL leader, became prime minister, but his government was harassed by Wałęsa and accused of trying to slow economic reform. In early 1995 Wałęsa threatened to dissolve parliament if the Pawlak government was not replaced. Betraying his intention to position himself for the 1995 presidential election, Wałęsa nominated a likely election opponent, Aleksander Kwaśniewski, for the position of prime minister. He was overruled by parliament, and Józef Oleksy, a member of the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) and former Communist, was eventually nominated. Amid this atmosphere Pawlak’s government lost a vote of confidence. Pawlak resigned as prime minister in March and was replaced by Oleksy.

In the presidential election held in November 1995, Wałęsa, who had discredited himself among the Poles through his personal failings and political mistakes, was unseated by Kwaśniewski, a former Communist and the founder and leader of the SLD. Kwaśniewski pledged to continue the process of economic reform and to seek full membership for Poland in the EU and NATO. In a move intended to help heal the political rifts resulting from the election, Kwaśniewski resigned from the leadership of the SLD later that month. Kwaśniewski was reelected president in 2000.

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In January 1996 Prime Minister Oleksy resigned in the face of a formal investigation into allegations that he had been spying for Russia for more than a decade. Oleksy, Poland’s seventh prime minister since the collapse of Communism, had once served in the Communist Party’s Central Committee. Although he admitted to having a friendship with a Russian intelligence agent who had been stationed in Warsaw since the 1980s, Oleksy denied the espionage charges and declared his innocence. Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz, also of the SLD, replaced Oleksy as prime minister in February. In April the military prosecutor investigating the charges against Oleksy decided to drop the case due to insufficient evidence of criminal activity.

In October 1996 the Sejm voted not to charge Jaruzelski and other former Communist officials with constitutional violations in connection with the imposition of martial law in 1981.

P

1

A New Constitution for Poland

In 1997 a special parliamentary commission, dominated by former Communists, completed the task of drafting a new constitution. Following parliamentary approval of the document in April, a nationwide referendum was held in May in which 52.7 percent of voters approved the new constitution. A coalition of right-wing groups associated with Solidarity and some Catholics strongly opposed its passage, claiming some of its provisions were overly secular. A synthesis of seven competing versions, the 243-article charter delineates the powers of the presidency, guarantees basic civil rights, ensures civilian control over the armed forces, and commits the country to a market economy and private ownership of enterprise.

In October 1997 the conservative Solidarity Electoral Action (AWS) and the pro-business Freedom Union (UW) formed a coalition government after winning a combined majority of seats in both the Sejm and the Senat in legislative elections the previous month. Kwaśniewski appointed Jerzy Buzek, a former Solidarity activist in the 1980s and an AWS legislator, as prime minister. A liberal reformer, Buzek pledged to accelerate the privatization of state-owned industries and to decentralize government power. In December 1997 the EU invited Poland to begin the process of becoming a full member.

In July 1998 the Polish government approved a plan to slash the number of provinces from 49 to 16, and to invest each province’s elected officials with more authority. The administrative reform, which took effect on January 1, 1999, was part of Poland's efforts to bring its laws and procedures in line with EU standards for admission. Government leaders celebrated Poland’s accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in March, about two years after it was invited into the historically western alliance.

The Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) emerged as the largest party in the September 2001 legislative elections and it formed a coalition government with the Polish People’s Party (PSL). Leszek Miller, SLD leader and a former member of the Polish Communist Party’s Central Committee, became prime minister in October. Miller vowed to reduce Poland’s growing budget deficit and to win membership for Poland in the EU. The elections were a stunning defeat for the Solidarity-led AWS, which was ousted from the legislature after failing to win the minimum 8 percent of the vote required for coalitions.

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2

Poland Since Its Entry into the EU

In a nationwide referendum in June 2003, Polish voters overwhelmingly supported Poland’s entry into the European Union (EU). The vote gave President Kwaśniewski popular approval to ratify Poland’s accession to the EU, which formally occurred in May 2004. Rising unemployment and mounting economic problems ahead of Poland’s entry into the EU led to widespread dissatisfaction with Prime Minister Miller’s government. In March 2004 Miller announced his intention to resign. A few days later the president named Marek Belka, an economist, as his successor.

However, persistently high unemployment and corruption scandals undermined the governing SLD, and support for the party plunged heading into the September 2005 parliamentary elections. The elections brought the lowest voter turnout—about 40 percent—since the fall of Communism in 1989.

The socially conservative Law and Justice Party (PiS) won the most seats in the election, followed by the pro-business Civic Platform (PO). Talks between the two parties to create a coalition government failed, and Law and Justice instead formed a minority government with the support of a number of smaller parties. Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, a noted economics expert, was named prime minister. Shortly after the parliamentary elections, Lech Kaczyński of Law and Justice won Poland’s presidency in a separate vote. Marcinkiewicz stood down as prime minister in July 2006 and was replaced by the president’s twin, Jarosław Kaczyński.

Prime Minister Kaczyński made rooting out corruption his highest priority and to this end formed the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau. His government also sought to remove former Communist officials from public positions. Relations with other EU countries, especially Germany, became strained as the prime minister pursued a more isolationist path for Poland.

The Law and Justice Party’s unstable coalition collapsed in August 2007, forcing early parliamentary elections in October. The elections had the highest turnout since 1989, with 53.8 percent of voters going to the polls. Civic Platform (PO) emerged as the clear winner, taking 209 seats in the 460-member Sejm, while Law and Justice trailed with 166 seats. The election outcome continued a trend: No government had been reelected in Poland since the fall of Communism. The Civic Platform victory was largely attributed to higher turnout among younger Poles, who favored the party’s pro-EU policies. Civic Platform leader Donald Tusk became prime minister and formed a coalition government with the Polish People’s Party, thereby securing a comfortable majority in the Sejm. Tusk’s highest priorities included improving relations with other EU countries and meeting stringent economic requirements for Poland’s eventual adoption of the euro, the currency of the EU.

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