1989 Polish presidential election

Last updated

1989 Polish presidential election
Flag of Poland.svg
  1947 19 July 1989 1990  
  Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski 13 grudnia 1981.JPG
Nominee Wojciech Jaruzelski
Party PZPR
Electoral vote270
Percentage50.28%
Nominators PZPR, ZSL, SD, PAX Association, UChS, PZKS

Elected President

Wojciech Jaruzelski
PZPR

Indirect presidential elections were held in Poland on 19 July 1989. The elections were the first after the office of President of the Republic of Poland had been re-established after a period of Communist rule and were the last in which the President was elected by Parliament (joint houses of the Sejm and Senate). Despite adoption of the democratic system there was only one candidate.

After the Round Table Agreement, which resulted in a semi-free parliamentary election, marked by effective Solidarity victory and de facto loss of the Polish United Workers' Party, on July 4, 1989, Adam Michnik proposed a power-sharing deal between communist and the democratic opposition (Your President, our Prime Minister ), according to which Chairman of the Council of State and Communist leader Wojciech Jaruzelski would become president and a solidarity representative Prime Minister (this position indeed went to Tadeusz Mazowiecki in August). After much debate within both camps this conception won.

Jaruzelski ran unopposed, but won by just a one-vote majority needed, as many Solidarity MPs, while supporting the agreement, felt just unable to cast their votes or, to not disturb the process, cast abstain or invalid votes.

Results

CandidatePartyVotes%
Wojciech Jaruzelski Polish United Workers' Party 27050.28
Against23343.39
Abstained346.33
Total537100.00
Source: New York Times

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1989</span> Calendar year

1989 (MCMLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1989th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 989th year of the 2nd millennium, the 89th year of the 20th century, and the 10th and last year of the 1980s decade.

Solidarity Electoral Action was a coalition of political parties in Poland, active from 1996 to 2001. AWS was the political arm of the Solidarity trade union, whose leader Lech Wałęsa, was President of Poland from 1990 to 1995, and the successor of the parties emerged from the fragmentation of the Solidarity Citizens' Committee.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Polish United Workers' Party</span> Founding and ruling party of the Polish Peoples Republic from 1948 to 1989

The Polish United Workers' Party, commonly abbreviated to PZPR, was the communist party which ruled the Polish People's Republic as a one-party state from 1948 to 1989. The PZPR had led two other legally permitted subordinate minor parties together as the Front of National Unity and later Patriotic Movement for National Rebirth. Ideologically, it was based on the theories of Marxism-Leninism, with a strong emphasis on left-wing nationalism. The Polish United Workers' Party had total control over public institutions in the country as well as the Polish People's Army, the UB and SB security agencies, the Citizens' Militia (MO) police force and the media.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wojciech Jaruzelski</span> Leader of Poland from 1981 to 1989

Wojciech Witold Jaruzelski was a Polish military general, politician and de facto leader of the Polish People's Republic from 1981 until 1989. He was the First Secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party between 1981 and 1989, making him the last leader of the Polish People's Republic. Jaruzelski served as Prime Minister from 1981 to 1985, the Chairman of the Council of State from 1985 to 1989 and briefly as President of Poland from 1989 to 1990, when the office of President was restored after 37 years. He was also the last commander-in-chief of the Polish People's Army, which in 1990 became the Polish Armed Forces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Poland (1989–present)</span> Aspect of history

From 1989 through 1991, Poland engaged in a democratic transition which put an end to the Polish People's Republic and led to the foundation of a democratic government, known as the Third Polish Republic, following the First and Second Polish Republic. After ten years of democratic consolidation, Poland joined NATO in 1999 and the European Union on 1 May 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Polish Round Table Agreement</span> Series of agreements between Poland and its trade unions in 1989

The Polish Round Table Talks took place in Warsaw, Poland from 6 February to 5 April 1989. The government initiated talks with the banned trade union Solidarność and other opposition groups in an attempt to defuse growing social unrest.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jan Olszewski</span> Polish lawyer and politician (1930–2019)

Jan Ferdynand Olszewski was a Polish conservative lawyer and politician who served as the Prime Minister of Poland for five months between December 1991 and early June 1992 and later became a leading figure of the conservative Movement for the Reconstruction of Poland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hanna Suchocka</span> Polish political figure, Prime Minister of Poland

Hanna Stanisława Suchocka is a Polish political figure, lawyer, professor at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań and Chair of the Constitutional Law Department, former First Vice-President and Honorary President of the Venice Commission.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tadeusz Mazowiecki</span> 1st Prime Minister of Poland (1989-91)

Tadeusz Mazowiecki was a Polish author, journalist, philanthropist and Christian-democratic politician, formerly one of the leaders of the Solidarity movement, and the first non-communist Polish prime minister since 1946.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2000 Polish presidential election</span>

Presidential elections were held in Poland on 8 October 2000. Incumbent President Aleksander Kwaśniewski was easily re-elected in the first round with more than 50% of the vote.

Poland has a multi-party political system. On the national level, Poland elects the head of state – the president – and a legislature. There are also various local elections, referendums and elections to the European Parliament.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1995 Polish presidential election</span>

Presidential elections were held in Poland on 5 November 1995, with a second round on 19 November. The leader of Social Democracy, Aleksander Kwaśniewski, and incumbent President Lech Wałęsa advanced to the second round. Kwaśniewski won the election with 52% of the vote in the run-off against 48% for Wałęsa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Poland (1945–1989)</span> Communist rule in Poland

The history of Poland from 1945 to 1989 spans the period of Marxist–Leninist regime in Poland after the end of World War II. These years, while featuring general industrialization, urbanization and many improvements in the standard of living, were marred by early Stalinist repressions, social unrest, political strife and severe economic difficulties. Near the end of World War II, the advancing Soviet Red Army, along with the Polish Armed Forces in the East, pushed out the Nazi German forces from occupied Poland. In February 1945, the Yalta Conference sanctioned the formation of a provisional government of Poland from a compromise coalition, until postwar elections. Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union, manipulated the implementation of that ruling. A practically communist-controlled Provisional Government of National Unity was formed in Warsaw by ignoring the Polish government-in-exile based in London since 1940.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Czesław Kiszczak</span> Polish general and politician

Czesław Jan Kiszczak was a Polish general, communist-era interior minister (1981–1990) and prime minister (1989).

The Solidarity Citizens' Committee, also known as Citizens' Electoral Committee and previously named the Citizens' Committee with Lech Wałęsa, was an initially semi-legal political organisation of the democratic opposition in Communist Poland.

Communism in Poland can trace its origins to the late 19th century: the Marxist First Proletariat party was founded in 1882. Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania party and the publicist Stanisław Brzozowski (1878–1911) were important early Polish Marxists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1989 Polish parliamentary election</span>

Parliamentary elections were held in Poland in 1989 to elect members of the Sejm and the recreated Senate. The first round took place on 4 June, with a second round on 18 June. They were the first elections in the country since the Communist Polish United Workers Party abandoned its monopoly of power in April 1989.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Solidarity</span> History of the Polish trade union

Solidarity, a Polish non-governmental trade union, was founded on August 14, 1980, at the Lenin Shipyards by Lech Wałęsa and others. In the early 1980s, it became the first independent labor union in a Soviet-bloc country. Solidarity gave rise to a broad, non-violent, anti-Communist social movement that, at its height, claimed some 9.4 million members. It is considered to have contributed greatly to the Fall of Communism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lech Wałęsa</span> President of Poland from 1990 to 1995

Lech Wałęsa is a Polish statesman, dissident, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who served as the President of Poland between 1990 and 1995. After winning the 1990 election, Wałęsa became the first democratically elected President of Poland since 1926 and the first-ever Polish president elected by popular vote. A shipyard electrician by trade, Wałęsa became the leader of the Solidarity movement, and led a successful pro-democratic effort, which in 1989 ended Communist rule in Poland and ushered in the end of the Cold War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John R. Davis Jr.</span> American diplomat and ambassador

John Roger Davis Jr. is a retired American diplomat. From 1988 to 1990, he served as the United States Ambassador to Poland, where he helped guide Solidarity, and Poland, in its quest for free elections. Later, from 1992 to 1994, he served as the United States Ambassador to Romania.