How single-member districts are reinforcing local independents and strengthening mayors: on the electoral reform in Polish local government

ABSTRACT

In this article, we investigate whether the design of the electoral system used in the elections of local councils affects the position of national parties and their main competitors, local independent lists. We study the case of the electoral reform enacted recently in Poland which modified the rules of council elections by introducing the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system, quite rarely used in local elections. Using empirical evidence from the municipalities where FPTP replaced the open-list proportional representation (OLPR) system, we demonstrate that the introduction of single-member districts, and majoritarian rule in council elections, increased the number of single independents, unaffiliated to any party or committee, and limited the (already poor) presence of party candidates and councillors. The reform also strengthened the position of directly elected mayors, in Poland – usually independent, by assuring many of them safe majorities in councils. We found that the share of seats for the winning mayor’s list increased by 10 pp on average after the reform.

KEYWORDS:

• Local elections
• electoral reform
• FPTP
• political parties
• local independent lists

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. While the elections of municipal councils (rady gmin) in Poland have been organised every 4 years since 1990, in 2002 the direct election of mayors was introduced in all Polish municipalities, since when Poland has presented a strong executive mayor model of local government system (Heinelt and Hlepas 2006). Mayors dominate in local politics, having considerable discretion in governing municipalities (Gendźwiłł and Swianiewicz, forthcoming). Local councils, however, remain an important institution ensuring political representation and accountability.

2. Multi-member districts of up to five seats were allowed in small municipalities. Voters in these districts of magnitude M were eligible to cast up to M votes – one each for up to M candidates (cf. Reynolds, Reilly, and Ellis 2005, 44).

3. The analysis of a legislative process shows that the ultimate outcome of the 2011 reform is more radical than the initial projects which were submitted. The only change postulated after the 2010 election was rather cosmetic and referred to the change of threshold of the ‘small-lists’ system from 20,000 to 40,000 inhabitants.

4. In the robustness check, the restricted group 4 consisted of 131 municipalities in which the number of eligible voters in 2010 was equal to or higher than the median; it increased the average size from 329,000 to 426,000. The restricted group 5 consisted of 48 municipalities which had no more than 200 thousand inhabitants in 2010; it decreased the average size from 1,950,000 to 993,000 (compare Table 2).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Narodowe Centrum Nauki [2013/09/N/HS5/00276].

Notes on contributors

Adam Gendźwiłł

Adam Gendźwiłł is an assistant professor at the Department of Local Development and Policy, Faculty of Geography and Regional Studies, University of Warsaw. His main research interests focus on local democracy, electoral systems, and party politics.

Tomasz Żółtak

Tomasz Żółtak is a sociologist and statistician at the Educational Research Institute in Warsaw. He is interested in the quantitative methodology employed in educational research and electoral studies.