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.
The president of the Council of Ministers, colloquially and commonly referred to as the prime minister, is the head of the cabinet and the head of government of Poland. The responsibilities and traditions of the office stem from the creation of the contemporary Polish state, and the office is defined in the Constitution of Poland. According to the Constitution, the president nominates and appoints the prime minister, who will then propose the composition of the Cabinet. Fourteen days following their appointment, the prime minister must submit a programme outlining the government's agenda to the Sejm, requiring a vote of confidence. Conflicts stemming from both interest and powers have arisen between the offices of President and Prime Minister in the past.
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.
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.
The Conservative People's Party was a liberal-conservative and Christian-democratic political party in Poland, active in 1997–2003 and 2007–2014. In 2014 party was incorporated into Poland Together.
Waldemar Pawlak is a Polish politician. He has twice served as Prime Minister of Poland, briefly in 1992 and again from 1993 to 1995. From November 2007 to November 2012 he served as Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Economy. Pawlak remains Poland's youngest prime minister to date.
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.
The Nonpartisan Bloc for Support of Reforms was an officially nonpartisan organization affiliated with Lech Wałęsa. It was established in 1993 and in 1997 became part of Solidarity Electoral Action.
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, the only time a direct presidential election in Poland has not gone to a second round.
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.
Jan Krzysztof Bielecki is a Polish liberal politician and economist. A leading figure of the Gdańsk-based Liberal Democratic Congress in the early 1990s, Bielecki served as Prime Minister of Poland for most of 1991. In his post-political career, Bielecki served as president of Bank Pekao between 2003 and 2010, and served as the president of the Polish Institute of International Affairs between 2009 and 2015. Since the early 2000s, Bielecki has been a member of the Civic Platform party. In 2010, the Warsaw Business Journal described Bielecki as one of the most respected economists in 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 Centre Agreement was a Christian-democratic political party in Poland. It was established in 1990 and had its roots in the Solidarity trade union and its political arm, the Solidarity Citizens' Committee. Its main leader was Jarosław Kaczyński. The party was initially the party of choice of Polish president Lech Wałęsa and heavily cooperated with him and his environment between 1990-1992, leading the first post-communist governments. In 1991, Jan Olszewski from Centre Agreement gained the support of Wałęsa for his candidacy for Prime Minister, forming a PC-led government. However, the government was mired with internal conflicts in 1992 and fell to a vote of no confidence. Afterwards, the party was increasingly marginalized and became a part of Solidarity Electoral Action in 1997. In 2001, leadership of the party dissolved Centre Agremeent to found Law and Justice, the direct successor of the party. However, it wouldn't be until a year later that it would dissolve.
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 Christian National Union was a Christian-democratic and nationalist political party in Poland. Established on 15 September 1989, the party traced its tradition to the Solidarity movement, as well as pre-World War II National Democracy and Polish Christian Democratic Party. The party adhered to the Christian right, advocating social conservatism. From its foundation until 1994, the party was led by Wiesław Chrzanowski, who was Marshal of the Sejm in 1991–1993.
The Senate 2001 bloc was an electoral alliance in Poland used by centre-right parties in the election to the Senate in 2001. It included post-Solidarity Electoral Action parties, who aimed to prevent domination of the Senate by the centre-left Democratic Left Alliance – Labor Union (SLD-UP). All of the component parties competed in the concurrent election to the Sejm separately.
The Labour Party is a minor political party in Poland. It was formally called the Christian-Democratic Labour Faction(Polish: Chrześcijańsko-Demokratyczne Stronnictwo Pracy, ChDSP) between 1989 and 2000.
Cabinet of Jan Olszewski was the government of Poland from 23 December 1991 to 5 June 1992, sitting in the Council of Ministers during the 1st legislature of the Sejm. Led by lawyer Jan Olszewski, it was supported by the coalition of the Centre Agreement and the Christian National Union as well as the Party of Christian Democrats in the beginning and the Peasants' Agreement at the end.
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.
