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 Polish Round Table Talks took place in Warsaw, Communist Poland, from 6 February to 5 April 1989. The government initiated talks with the banned trade union Solidarność and other opposition groups to defuse growing social unrest.
Lech Aleksander Kaczyński was a Polish politician who served as the city mayor of Warsaw from 2002 until 2005, and as President of Poland from 2005 until his death in 2010. Before his tenure as president, he previously served as President of the Supreme Audit Office from 1992 to 1995 and later Minister of Justice and Public Prosecutor General in Jerzy Buzek's cabinet from 2000 until his dismissal in July 2001.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
The Citizens' Movement for Democratic Action was a political faction in Poland coalescing several members of the Solidarity Citizens' Committee.
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 and 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 1999, the bigger faction of the party left to the newly created Polish Christian Democratic Agreement; further, in 2001, the leadership of the party dissolved Centre Agreement to found Law and Justice, the direct successor of the party. However, it wouldn't be until a year later that it would dissolve.
Lustration in Poland is the policy of limiting the participation of former communists – especially of informants of the communist secret police – during 1944–1990, in successor governments or even in civil-service positions.
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.
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.
Romuald Szeremietiew is a Polish politician, columnist, habilitated doctor of military sciences and associated professor at the Academy of National Defense and the War Studies Academy. He was a founding member of the Confederation of Independent Poland, an anti-communist, Sanationist independence movement. He became a member of the Sejm in 1997 and served as the Minister of National Defense in 1992 and Vice-minister in 1997.
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.
The Centre Agreement – Polish Union was a Christian-democratic electoral alliance in Poland. It united the Centre Agreement (PC), Third Republic Movement (RTR), Christian-Democratic Labour Faction (ChDSP), Party of Fidelity to the Republic (SWR-KSN) and Regional Agreement RdR.
The Polish Union, also known as the Regional Agreement RdR in 1993, was a Christian-democratic centre-right political party in Poland. The party was founded by defectors from Polish Christian-democratic party Movement for the Republic, who left the party over the dispute regarding forming a possible coalition with Centre Agreement, the party that Movement for the Republic was itself a split from. Shortly after being formed, the Polish Union announced an electoral union with the Centre Agreement in June 1993, known as Centre Agreement – Polish Union.
The Centre Agreement – Integrative Initiative was a Christian-democratic political party in Poland. It was founded by the former secretary and member of the executive board of Centre Agreement (PC) Wojciech Dobrzyński, who was stripped of his functions on 5 October 1994, and then expelled from the party by Jarosław Kaczyński in January 1995. Kaczyński expelled Dobrzyński over his willigness to cooperate with the right-wing Christian National Union, a party that wanted to create an All-Polish electoral alliance that would unite all right-leaning parties in Poland but exclude the PC.
The Movement for the Republic – Patriotic Camp was a political party in Poland. It was a party that split from the Movement for the Republic (RdR), with the split being caused by differences of opinion in regards to the party's position and possible cooperation with the President Lech Wałęsa. The RdR–OP was led by Romuald Szeremietiew who supported cooperation with the President, and was narrowly elected the leader of RdR in 1993. However, the party leadership annulled the results of the election, and elected Olszewski in the name of Szeremietiew, prompting the split. The party was a right-leaning movement and was strongly supportive of not only the President Lech Wałęsa, but also the efforts to form a united centre-right front against the post-communist left in Poland.
The Homeland Patriotic Movement was a right-wing electoral coalition created for the 1998 Polish local elections. It was a coalition of numerous right-wing formations as well as an environmentalist party and left-wing trade unions, and sought to present a right-wing alternative to the centre-right Christian-democratic Solidarity Electoral Action. The founding parties of the coalition were a part of the Solidarity Electoral Action in the 1997 Polish parliamentary election, but left it over political and ideological disagreements. The main party in the coalition was the Nonpartisan Bloc for Support of Reforms, renamed to Bloc for Poland. Despite running an aggressive and dynamic campaign, the coalition finished 6th and won 3.19% of the popular vote, winning 256 council seats in total, including 2 out of 855 seats in the voivodeship sejmiks. The coalition dissolved shortly after the election, but its members continued their cooperation, founding the Alternative Social Movement for the 2001 Polish parliamentary election.
