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.
Presidential elections were held in Poland on 25 November 1990, with a second round on 9 December. They were the first direct presidential elections in the history of Poland, and the first free presidential elections since the May Coup of 1926. Before World War II, presidents were elected by the Sejm. From 1952 to 1989—the bulk of the Communist era—the presidency did not exist as a separate institution, and most of its functions were fulfilled by the State Council of Poland, whose chairman was considered the equivalent of a president.
The Nonpartisan Bloc for Support of Reforms was an officially nonpartisan organization affiliated with Lech Wałęsa. The party was established in 1993, and became part of Solidarity Electoral Action in 1997.
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.
Parliamentary elections were held in Poland on 23 September 2001. All 460 members of the Sejm and 100 senators of the Senate were elected. The election concluded with an overwhelming victory for the centre-left Democratic Left Alliance – Labor Union, the electoral coalition between the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) and the Labour Union (UP), which captured 41% of the vote in the crucial lower house Sejm. The 2001 election is recognized as marking the emergence of both Civic Platform (PO) and Law and Justice (PiS) as players in Polish politics, while also witnessing the outright collapse of the Solidarity Electoral Action (AWS) and its former coalition partner, the Freedom Union (UW).
Parliamentary elections were held in Poland on 21 September 1997. All 460 members of the Sejm and 100 senators of the Senate were elected. The liberal conservative party Solidarity Electoral Action won the most seats in both chambers of parliament and formed a coalition government with the Freedom Union, another liberal party. The elections were a major setback for the Democratic Left Alliance and the Polish People's Party, which were forced out of government.
The Constitutional Tribunal is the constitutional court of the Republic of Poland, a judicial body established to resolve disputes on the constitutionality of the activities of state institutions; its main task is to supervise the compliance of statutory law with the Constitution of the Republic of Poland.
Parliamentary elections were held in Poland on 27 October 1991 to elect deputies to both houses of the National Assembly. The 1991 election was notable on several counts. It was the first parliamentary election to be held since the formation of the Third Republic, the first entirely free and competitive legislative election since the fall of communism, the first completely free legislative election of any sort since 1928. Due to the collapse of the Solidarity political wing, the Solidarity Citizens' Committee, the 1991 election saw deep political fragmentation, with a multitude of new parties and alliances emerging in its wake. Low voting thresholds within individual constituencies, along with a five percent national threshold allocated to a small portion of the Sejm, additionally contributed to party fragmentation. As a result, 29 political parties gained entry into the Sejm and 22 in the Senate, with no party holding a decisive majority. Two months of intense coalition negotiations followed, with Jan Olszewski of the Centre Agreement forming a minority government along with the Christian National Union, remnants of the broader Centre Civic Alliance, and the Peasants' Agreement, with conditional support from Polish People's Party, Solidarity list and other minor parties.
The Commissioner for Human Rights is a Polish ombudsman, an official appointed for a five year term by the Sejm with an approval of the Senate. Commissioner's responsibility is to protect civil and human rights implied by the Constitution of Poland and other legislative acts.
Anna Walentynowicz was a Polish free trade union activist and co-founder of Solidarity, the first non-communist trade union in the Eastern Bloc. Her firing from her job at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk in August 1980 was the event that ignited the strike at the shipyard, set off a wave of strikes across Poland, and quickly paralyzed the Baltic coast. The Interfactory Strike Committee (MKS) based in the Gdańsk shipyard eventually transformed itself into Solidarity; by September, more than one million workers were on strike in support of the 21 demands of MKS, making it the largest strike ever.
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.
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.
The Ministry of National Education is a ministerial department of the government of Poland, established on 1 January 2024 after being separated from the Ministry of Education and Science. The ministry's prerogatives include setting educational standards and youth activities. It does not oversee higher education, which falls under Ministry of Science and Higher Education. The two were created in May 2006 by splitting the Ministry of Education and Science. In January 2021, the two were merged, only to be separated again in 2024.
Warsaw I, officially known as Constituency no. 19, is one of the 41 constituencies of the Sejm, the lower house of the Parliament of Poland, the national legislature of Poland. The constituency was established as Constituency no. 1 in 1991 following the re-organisation of constituencies across Poland. It was renamed Sejm Constituency no. 19 in 2001 following another nationwide re-organisation of constituencies. It is conterminous with the city of Warsaw. Electors living abroad or working aboard ships and oil rigs are included in this constituency. The constituency currently elects 20 of the 460 members of the Sejm using the open party-list proportional representation electoral system. At the 2023 parliamentary election it had 1,993,723 registered electors.
Parliamentary elections were held in Poland on 13 October 2019. All 460 members of the Sejm and 100 senators of the Senate were elected. The ruling right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) won re-election to a second term retaining its majority in the Sejm. However, it lost its majority in the Senate to the opposition. With 43.6% of the popular vote, Law and Justice received the highest vote share by any party since Poland returned to democracy in 1989. The turnout was the highest for a parliamentary election since the first free elections after the fall of communism in 1989. For the first time after 1989, the ruling party controlled one house, while the opposition controlled the other.
First Cabinet of Mateusz Morawiecki formed the previous government of Poland between 2017 and 2019, following Szydło's cabinet. Governing during the 8th legislature of the Sejm and the 9th legislature of the Senate, it was led by Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.
Włodzimierz Czarzasty is a Polish politician who serves as the co-chairperson of the New Left party. He has been serving as a Deputy Marshal of the Sejm since 12 November 2019.
The Movement for the Republic was a Christian-democratic political party in Poland. The party was founded by former members of centrist Centre Agreement who protested the downfall of Jan Olszewski and his cabinet from power. The party aspired to become the leading Christian-democratic party in Poland and contested the 1993 Polish parliamentary election, but it gained no seats as it failed to cross the 5% electoral threshold. The party was also mired by several splits and internal conflicts, which results in the party disintegrating into several smaller parties and formations. In 1995, Movement for Reconstruction of Poland founded by the party's first leader Jan Olszewski, absorbed most members of the party. The RdR dissolved in 1999.
Krystyna Łukaszuk is Polish trade union activist, state official, Voivode of Białystok Voivodeship in 1997–1998 and then, following the 1999 administrative reform, as Voivode of Podlaskie Voivodeship from 1999 to 2001.
The Catholic Electoral Committee "Fatherland" was a conservative and Christian democratic electoral alliance in Poland. It consisted of five parties - the Christian National Union (ZChN), Conservative Party (PK), Christian-Peasant Party (SLCh), Party of Christian Democrats (PChD) and the Federation of Polish Entrepreneurship (FPP).
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