The Civic Platform is a centre to centre-right liberal conservative political party in Poland. Since 2021, it has been led by Donald Tusk, who previously led it from 2003 to 2014 and was President of the European Council from 2014 to 2019.
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.
Law and Justice is a right-wing populist and national-conservative political party in Poland. Its chairman is Jarosław Kaczyński.
Jarosław Aleksander Kaczyński is a Polish politician. He has been the leader of the Law and Justice party (PiS) since 2003. He served as Prime Minister of Poland from 2006 to 2007, and has twice held the post of Deputy Prime Minister of Poland, first from 2020 to 2022, and a second time from June to November 2023.
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.
Parliamentary elections were held in Poland on 25 September 2005. Thirty million voters were eligible to vote for all 460 members of the lower house, the Sejm and all 100 members of the upper house, the Senate.
Presidential elections were held in Poland on 9 October and 23 October 2005. The outgoing President of Poland, Aleksander Kwaśniewski, had served two five-year terms and was unable to stand for a third term. Lech Kaczyński defeated Donald Tusk to become President of Poland.
Parliamentary elections were held in Poland on 23 September 2001 to elect deputies to both houses of the National Assembly. 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).
Marek Tadeusz Kuchciński is a member of the Sejm of Poland, first elected in 2001. Before 2015, he served the parliament as one of the Deputy Marshals of the Sejm, nominated by the Law and Justice club, and also as the Parliamentary Caucus Head of the above-mentioned party. From 2015 to 2019, when his party possessed the majority of seats in both houses, he held the office of Marshal of the Sejm.
Beata Maria Szydło is a Polish politician who has served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) since 2019. A member of Law and Justice (PiS), she previously served as Prime Minister of Poland from 2015 to 2017. Szydło became the third woman to hold the office, after Hanna Suchocka and her immediate predecessor Ewa Kopacz. She currently is a vice-chair of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group in the European Parliament.
Parliamentary elections were held in Poland on 21 October 2007, after the Sejm voted for its own dissolution on 7 September. The election took place two years before the maximum tenure of four years, with the previous elections having been in September 2005. The early elections were a result of serious allegations of massive corruption on the part of Andrzej Lepper, leader of the Self-Defense of the Republic of Poland, whose party served as a junior coalition partner to the government of Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński. All 460 seats in the Sejm and all 100 seats in the Senate were up for election.
The 2009 European Parliament election in Poland was the election of the delegation from Poland to the European Parliament in 2009 which took place on 7 June 2009. On 13 February the Sejm accepted a proposal for an amendment to the electoral court act to allow voting for the European Parliament election of 2009 to take place over 2 days i.e. the 6 and 7 June 2009. However, on 5 March, the proposal was referred to the Constitutional Tribunal of the Republic of Poland by the Polish President, Lech Kaczyński. The Polish electorate elected 50 MEPs. In the 27 EU Member States, at total of 736 MEPs were elected from 4–7 June 2009.
Poland Comes First, also rendered as Poland is the Most Important, shortened to Poland First, and abbreviated to PJN, was a centre-right, conservative liberal, political party in Poland. It was formed as a more moderate breakaway group from Law and Justice (PiS). By early 2011, the party had eighteen members of the Sejm, one member of the Senate, and three members of the European Parliament. Poland Comes First ceased to exist as a political party in December 2013, when it joined the new centre-right party led by Jarosław Gowin named Poland Together.
Parliamentary elections to both the Senate and the Sejm were held in Poland on 9 October 2011. The previous election, in 2007, resulted in a Civic Platform–Polish People's Party government. All seats of both Houses were up for re-election.
Barbara Anna Nowacka is a Polish politician who has served as Minister of National Education since December 2023. In October 2015 she became leader of the United Left coalition for the 2015 Polish parliamentary election, bringing together Labour Union, Your Movement, the Democratic Left Alliance, the Greens, and the Polish Socialist Party. Nowacka is the daughter of the late Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Social Policy Izabela Jaruga-Nowacka. Since 2016 she has been the leader of the Polish Initiative.
The Polish Constitutional Tribunal crisis has been an ongoing political conflict in Poland starting in the second half of 2015 over the appointment of five of the 15 judges of the Constitutional Tribunal.
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 Law and Justice (PiS) retained its majority in the Sejm, but 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.
The United Right was a parliamentary group formed by Jarosław Gowin and Zbigniew Ziobro with their respective parties, Poland Together and United Poland. After their cooperation at 2015 Polish parliamentary election with the Law and Justice party, 'United Right' became a media label for the ruling right-wing political alliance of Law and Justice with its aforementioned partners in Poland.
The 2023 Polish parliamentary election took place on Sunday, 15 October 2023, per the Polish Constitution. Seats in both the lower house, the Sejm, and the Senate were contested. At the polls, a referendum - containing four questions concerning economic and immigration policy of the government - was also voted on.
Presidential elections will be held in Poland on or before 18 May 2025, though they can be held earlier should the office become vacated as a result of death, resignation or removal from office of the incumbent. Due to constitutional term limits allowing a president to serve only two terms, incumbent president Andrzej Duda is ineligible for re-election. Presidential elections in Poland must take place on a free day between 75 and 100 days before the term's end.
