Parliamentary elections were held in
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
on 5 November 1922, with
Senate elections held a week later on 12 November.
[ Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', p1491 ] The elections were governed by the
March Constitution of Poland
The Second Polish Republic adopted the March Constitution on 17 March 1921, after ousting the occupation of the German/Prussian forces in the 1918 Greater Poland Uprising, and avoiding conquest by the Soviets in the 1920 Polish-Soviet War. The ...
, and saw the
Christian Union of National Unity coalition emerge as the largest bloc in the
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 ...
with 163 of the 444 seats.
The resulting coalitions were unstable, and the situation - difficult from the start, with
assassination of
Polish president Gabriel Narutowicz
Gabriel Józef Narutowicz (; 29 March 1865 – 16 December 1922) was a Polish professor of hydroelectric engineering and politician who served as the first President of Poland from 11 December 1922 until his assassination on 16 December, five d ...
in December shortly after the elections - culminated in 1926 with the
May Coup.
Results
Sejm
Senate
Ethnoreligious voting analysis
According to Kopstein and Wittenberg, 39% of the majority Catholic population voted for right-wing parties, 29% for non-revolutionary left-wing parties and 25% for centrist parties. The other ethnoreligious groups, including Uniates, Jews and Orthodox Christians voted largely for parties representing minority groups.
Some regional differences were observed; in western Poland, 9% of the Catholic vote went to minority interest parties, which has been attributed in part to German Catholic voting, but in the east, only 1% did. Ethnic Polish support for the right wing was stronger in the east of the country, where 40% voted for right-wing parties, as opposed to the south where 16% did. No detectable regional variation existed among Jews.
[Kopstein & Wittenberg, p99] The lack of support for the center and right among the major minorities (Jews, Ukrainians and Belarusians) was attributed to ethnic polarization that was exacerbated by discrimination and chauvinism from Polish officials.
[Kopstein & Wittenberg, p98] Despite the success of minority parties, parties describing themselves as "Polish" refused to form a government with minority parties, and there was not one non-ethnic Polish cabinet member in the interwar period, though interethnic cooperation could still be seen in Ukrainian and Belarusian support for the Sikorski government.
[
]
References
Further reading
*A. J. Groth, ''Polish Elections 1919-1928'', Slavic Review, Vol. 24, No. 4 (Dec., 1965), pp. 653–66
JSTOR
{{Polish elections
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
1922 in Poland
Parliamentary elections in Poland
November 1922 events in Europe
1922 elections in Poland