The Solidarity Citizens' Committee (''Komitet Obywatelski "Solidarność"'', KO "S"), also known as Citizens' Electoral Committee (''Obywatelski Komitet Wyborczy'') and previously named the Citizens' Committee with
Lech Wałęsa
Lech Wałęsa (; ; born 29 September 1943) 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 democratica ...
(''Komitet Obywatelski przy Lechu Wałęsie''), was an initially semi-legal political organisation of the democratic opposition in
Communist Poland
The Polish People's Republic ( pl, Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL) was a country in Central Europe that existed from 1947 to 1989 as the predecessor of the modern Republic of Poland. With a population of approximately 37.9 million nea ...
.
Formed on 18 December 1988 in the premises of the
Divine Mercy church in Warsaw, it spontaneously evolved into a nationwide movement attracting a vast majority of supporters of radical political change in the country after the conclusion of the
Round Table talks (6 February–4 April 1989) and the announcement of
semi-free general elections for 4 June that year.
The relaunched union weekly ''
Tygodnik Solidarność
''Tygodnik Solidarność'' (, "Solidarity Weekly") is a Polish weekly magazine. Started and published by the Solidarity movement on 3 April 1981, it was banned by the People's Republic of Poland following the martial law declaration from 13 Decem ...
'', then edited by
Tadeusz Mazowiecki
Tadeusz Mazowiecki (; 18 April 1927 – 28 October 2013) was a Polish author, journalist, philanthropist and Christian-democratic politician, formerly one of the leaders of the Solidarity movement, and the first non-communist Polish prime min ...
; and the new ''
Gazeta Wyborcza
''Gazeta Wyborcza'' (; ''The Electoral Gazette'' in English) is a Polish daily newspaper based in Warsaw, Poland. It is the first Polish daily newspaper after the era of "real socialism" and one of Poland's newspapers of record, covering the g ...
'' (today Poland's largest daily paper), edited by
Adam Michnik
Adam Michnik (; born 17 October 1946) is a Polish historian, essayist, former dissident, public intellectual, and editor-in-chief of the Polish newspaper, ''Gazeta Wyborcza''.
Reared in a family of committed communists, Michnik became an opponen ...
and launched on 8 May 1989, became influential organs for the movement. Its name came from the
independent union
An independent unions is a trade union that represents workers in one plant or company and is free of employer control. (This includes a union representing workers in more than one plant located in two or more states but employed by the same employ ...
Solidarity.
History
According to the Round Table Agreement, 35%, i.e. 161 out of 460 seats in the so-called "
Contract Sejm" (''Sejm kontraktowy''), the lower house of the Polish parliament, were to be allocated by a free election. In the run-up to the election, the Citizens' Committee decided to nominate as many candidates in each constituency as there were seats democratically available. The Round Table Agreement also included the restoration of a less powerful upper house of parliament, the
Senate
A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...
, which had been abolished in 1946, to accommodate the opposition's demand for parliamentary representation. The new senate was to have 100 seats, all of which were to be allocated in a free election. The Citizens' Committee nominated a candidate for each seat.
In its campaigning, the Citizens' Committee relied on its "Electoral Paper" ''Gazeta Wyborcza'', and election posters printed mostly unofficially by an extensive network of
samizdat
Samizdat (russian: самиздат, lit=self-publishing, links=no) was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the document ...
print shops, which had been operating throughout the 1980s. Every candidate had an article in ''
Gazeta Wyborcza
''Gazeta Wyborcza'' (; ''The Electoral Gazette'' in English) is a Polish daily newspaper based in Warsaw, Poland. It is the first Polish daily newspaper after the era of "real socialism" and one of Poland's newspapers of record, covering the g ...
'' and posters showing them with the figurehead of the opposition, Wałęsa. There were other motifs too, most famously perhaps the minimalist "High Noon" poster billing the election as the ultimate showdown between the government and the people.
Held in two ballots on 4 and 18 June, the election resulted in a landslide victory of the opposition organised in the Citizens' Committee, which won all 161 seats available to it in the Sejm, and 99 out of 100 seats in the senate. The one remaining senate seat was won by independent candidate Henryk Stokłosa. The Committee's candidates won by a large margin in all constituencies, frequently receiving more than 90% of the votes.
Independent, non-Committee candidates obtained a total of 40% of all votes not cast for the ruling
Polish United Workers' Party
The Polish United Workers' Party ( pl, Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza; ), commonly abbreviated to PZPR, was the communist party which ruled the Polish People's Republic as a one-party state from 1948 to 1989. The PZPR had led two other lega ...
and its affiliates. Even in this historic "showdown" election, the
turnout was merely 62% in the first and 26% in the second ballot and low turnouts have remained a problem in all Polish elections since.
On 25 August 1989, the new "Contract Sejm" elected the Civil Committee's candidate Tadeusz Mazowiecki as
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...
, making him the first ever non-Communist head of government east of the
Iron Curtain
The Iron Curtain was the political boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The term symbolizes the efforts by the Soviet Union (USSR) to block itself and its s ...
whereas the presidency remained in the hands of the ruling party.
As the Committee was not a typical political party but a rather spontaneously formed, loose organisation to facilitate and focus the opposition's pre-election efforts, it did not survive its own triumph for long. On 23 June 1989, the Committee candidates which found themselves in the Sejm formed the Citizens' Parliamentary Party (''Obywatelski Klub Parlamentarny'', OKP), which elected
Bronisław Geremek as chairman.
However, political frictions soon occurred within the OKP. Eventually, two rival factions emerged from the OKP and its political milieu, namely a more conservative and populist wing which formed the party
Centre Agreement
Porozumienie Centrum (PC; en, Centre Agreement) was a Polish Christian democratic political party. The party rose in 1990. Its chairman was Jarosław Kaczyński. In its programme, the PC opposed socialism and was anti-communist. In 1997 PC join ...
(''Porozumienie Centrum'', PC) on 12 May 1990 led by
Lech Kaczyński
Lech Aleksander Kaczyński (; 18 June 194910 April 2010) 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 prev ...
whereas the more liberal, "intellectual" wing represented by Geremek went on to form their own party called
Citizens' Movement for Democratic Action
The Citizens' Movement for Democratic Action (''Ruch Obywatelski Akcja Demokratyczna'', ROAD) was a Market socialism, market-socialist and political party in Poland. The party was centrist-socialist on economic issues and conservative to moderate ...
(''Ruch Obywatelski Akcja Demokratyczna'', ROAD) which later evolved into the
Democratic Union (''Unia Demokratyczna'', UD),
Freedom Union (''Unia Wolności'', UW) and most recently the
Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to:
*Democratic Party (United States)
Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to:
Active parties Africa
*Botswana Democratic Party
*Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea
*Gabonese Democratic Party
*Demo ...
(''Partia Demokratyczna'' (PD), also known as ''demokraci.pl''. The split between Solidarity's conservative and liberal heirs became evident in the
1990 presidential election, when the conservatives supported Wałęsa while the liberals nominated Mazowiecki as their own candidate. This cleavage continues to shape the Polish political landscape until this day.
Election Results
Sejm
The Sejm (English: , Polish: ), officially known as the Sejm of the Republic of Poland (Polish: ''Sejm Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej''), is the lower house of the bicameral parliament of Poland.
The Sejm has been the highest governing body of t ...
Senate
A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...
References
{{Authority control
Defunct political parties in Poland
1988 establishments in Poland
Solidarity (Polish trade union)
Catholic political parties