Poland's politics and the travails of transition after 2001: The 2005 elections

Abstract

As previously, the 2005 election in Poland saw the defeat of the incumbent government, but unlike previous elections, it marked the end of the Solidarity – successor party divide that had characterised Polish politics since 1989. The near simultaneity of parliamentary and presidential election campaigns made the campaigns indistinguishable, and each interacted with the other. Party programmes were similar; transition-related issues dominated the election. Its unexpected victor was Law and Justice (PiS), which sought a radical break with the trajectory of post-communist development and a moral revolution in a new ‘Fourth Republic’. PiS successfully appropriated the welfare mantle of the discredited social democrats and mobilised traditional conservative and religious values. Despite formal plans for a PiS coalition with Civic Platform, the election resulted unexpectedly in PiS's coalition with the radical parties Self-Defence and the League of Polish Families.

Notes

¹Stabilisation remains a controversial matter; for the view that Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia ‘have achieved a remarkable degree of party system stability’ see, for example, Bakke and Sitter (2005, pp. 245 – 263).

²See Centrum Badania Opinii Społecznej (2004a); and the ‘Social Diagnosis 2005’ survey, reported in Rzeczpospolita, 5 and 6 October 2005.

³All polls confirmed this; see especially Centrum Badania Opinii Społecznej (2003a, 2003b, 2003c).

⁴‘List Otwarty do członków Sojuszu Lewicy Demokratycznej’; the unsigned version was placed on the SdPl website, available at: http://www.sdpl.org.pl/dokumenty.php, accessed 24 June 2004.

⁵OBOP data, Rzeczpospolita, 17 – 18 April 2004; OBOP and CBOS data, Rzeczpospolita, 15 – 16 May 2004; Pentor data, Rzeczpospolita, 21 May 2004.

⁶See the discussion in Rzeczpospolita, 25 June 2004.

⁷Survey data in Rzeczpospolita, 22 – 23 May and 23 June 2004.

⁸OBOP found that 86% negatively evaluated Belka's government; Rzeczpospolita, 25 – 26 May 2005.

⁹For a broad comparative analysis see Kamiński and Kamiński (2004).

¹⁰Commission materials are on the Sejm's website, available at: http://orka.sejm.gov.pl/KomSled.nsf, accessed 26 August 2005.

¹¹CBOS charted public scepticism in surveys in February, March, April, July, September, October and December 2003; available at: http://www.cbos.pl/PL/Raporty/raporty.htm, accessed 11 December 2005.

¹²On the health service see Solecka and Stankiewicz (2003a, 2003b). The main local government cases were in Starachowice and in Łódź, Opole, and Bydgoszcz provinces.

¹³In the Sejm, 15 December 2004; see also ‘Wersja Giertycha’, Rzeczpospolita, 14 December 2004.

¹⁴Quoted in Rzeczpospolita, 16 March 2005.

¹⁵CBOS data from May 2004 in Gazeta Wyborcza, 8 June 2004.

¹⁶The term derives from religious ritual: it signals cleansing or purifying. See Szczerbiak (2002, pp. 553 – 572) and Williams et al. (2005, pp. 22 – 43).

¹⁷The list was online at LISTA.ATSPACE.ORG.

¹⁸See Morawski (2005). The journal Wprost defended Wildstein and supported the lustration of journalists. Attacks on Wildstein featured in Rzeczpospolita, Gazeta Wyborcza, and Polityka.

¹⁹ Rzeczpospolita, 11 – 12 June 2005.

²⁰ Plan uporza˛dkowania i ograniczenia wydatków publicznych (no date) (Warsaw, Ministerstwo Gospodarki, Pracy i Polityki Społecznej).

²¹See the perceptive analysis by Professor Marek Góra (2004).

²²This is calculated from data in Główny Urza˛d Statystyczny, ‘Obwieszczenie Prezesa Głównego Urze˛du Statystycznego z dnia 27 września 2005 r. w sprawie przecie˛tnej stopy bezrobocia w kraju oraz na obszarze działania powiatowych urze˛dów pracy’, available at http://www.stat.gov.pl, accessed 23 November 2005.

²³See Główny Urza˛d Statystyczny (2003), Table 1.

²⁴ Rzeczpospolita, 20 May 1996.

²⁵See Solecka and Stankiewicz (2003a, 2003b); for a summary of the commission's findings see Rzeczpospolita, 16 September 2005.

²⁶Unless otherwise indicated, the sources used are the programmes and draft constitutions gathered from party headquarters in September 2005. Most parties also posted their programmes on their websites. Where appropriate, short forms of programme titles are cited.

²⁷The First Republic was the inter-war regime (1918 – 39), the Second, the Polish People's Republic (1945 – 90).

²⁸Andrzej Lepper, cited in Rzeczpospolita, 25 April 2005.

²⁹ Program Społeczno-Gospodarczy Polskiego Stronnictwa Ludowego; italics in the original.

³⁰ Manifest wyborczy Sojuszu Lewicy Demokratycznej; italics in the original.

³¹ Sprawź, co Ci proponuje Partia Demokratyczna (no date).

³²See www.po.org.pl/files_/dokumenty/program/program_po.doc, accessed 18 September 2005. PO never published its programme. It referred enquiries to Rokita's website, where key policies were outlined; the website www.janrokita.pl (accessed 18 September 2005) is the main source for subsequent programme analysis here.

³³This was the case with the monthly CBOS polls of party preferences, as well as the OBOP polls published in Rzeczpospolita.

³⁴PBS data, Gazeta Wyborcza, 19 September 2005; OBOP data, Gazeta Wyborcza, 20 September 2005; ‘Preferencje partyjne na tydzień przed wyborami’, Centrum Badania Opinii Społecznej (2005c).

³⁵Ludwik Dorn, quoted in Rzeczpospolita, 18 July 2005.

³⁶In his lecture to the Batory Foundation, reported in the press on 20 September 2005.

³⁷See Trybuna, 20 September 2005.

³⁸Shown on the television news Wiadomosci, TVP1, 20 September 2005.

³⁹Available at: http://www.janrokita.pl, accessed 18 September 2005.

⁴⁰PBS – OBOP exit polls for TVP, Gazeta Wyborcza, 23 October 2005.

⁴¹ Rzeczpospolita, 2 December 2005.

⁴²Centrum Badania Opinii Społecznej (2005e, 2005f); SO had 5% in early December according to GfK Polonia data; Rzeczpospolita, 7 December 2005.