Solidarity, full name Independent Self-Governing Trade Union "Solidarity", is a Polish trade union founded in August 1980 at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, Poland. Subsequently, it was the first independent trade union in a Warsaw Pact country to be recognised by the state.
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 Władysław Rokita is a Polish liberal politician, a member of the Sejm, the lower chamber of the Polish parliament. He was chairman of the parliamentary club of the Civic Platform party from 2003 to 2005.
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.
Bronisław Geremek was a Polish social historian and politician. He was an opposition activist in the Polish People's Republic and participated in the Polish Round Table Agreement.
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.
The Alliance of Democrats is a Polish centre-left party. Initially formed in 1937, the party underwent a revival in 2009, when it was joined by liberal politician Paweł Piskorski, formerly a member of the Civic Platform.
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.
Bronisław Maria Komorowski is a Polish former politician and historian who served as the fifth president of Poland from 2010 to 2015. Komorowski previously served as Minister of Defence from 2000 to 2001. As Marshal of the Sejm, Komorowski exercised the powers and duties of acting president following the death of President Lech Kaczyński in a plane crash on 10 April 2010.
Bogdan Michał Borusewicz is a Polish politician who served as the Marshal of the Polish Senate from 20 October 2005 to 11 November 2015. Borusewicz was a democratic opposition activist under the Communist regime, a member of the Polish parliament (Sejm) for three terms and first Senate Marshal to serve two terms in this office. He served as the Acting President of Poland for a few hours in 2010.
Grażyna Jolanta Ciemniak is a Polish political figure who has been a member of the Senate of Poland (1993–97) and Deputy President of Bydgoszcz (1998–2001), as well as member of the Sejm of Poland and member of the European Parliament (2004).
Sławomir Witold Nitras is a Polish politician, political scientist, member of Civic Platform (PO) and a member of the Sejm since 2015. He currently serves as Minister of Sport and Tourism.
Andrzej Bohdan Celiński is a Polish politician. Until 1989 activist of the democratic opposition in Poland. Former Member of Senate and Sejm. Minister of Culture in the government of Prime Minister Leszek Miller (2001-2002).
Krzysztof Brejza is a Polish politician, currently serving as member of the European Parliament (MEP). He was member of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland, representing the Bydgoszcz district. Between 2005 and 2006 he was a member of the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Regional Assembly.
Roman Bolesław Bartoszcze was a Polish agrarian politician from the Polish People's Party (PSL).
National Coordinating Commission, later called the National Commission was the executive branch of the Solidarity trade union. It was created on September 17, 1980, in Gdańsk, as a national body which coordinated activities of regional and factory structures of Solidarity, and it included members of the Interfactory Founding Committees in Polish cities.
Kosma Tadeusz Złotowski is a Polish politician who was a member of both chambers of the Polish parliament, President (Mayor) of Bydgoszcz (1994-1995) and a member of Bydgoszcz City Council (2002-2005).
Grzegorz Zenon Schreiber is a Polish politician who is a current Marshal of Łódź Voivodeship. Between 1991 and 1993 he was Sejm member. He was Bydgoszcz City Councillors also (2002–2006).
Adam Glapiński is a Polish economist and politician, the current President of the National Bank of Poland, Economics professor, a member of the first term of the Sejm, a member of the fourth term of the Senate and between 2010 and 2016 a member of the Monetary Policy Council. He also served as the Minister for Construction and Spatial Planning and later as the Minister for Foreign Economic Cooperation.
