Paweł Jan Bejda (born 13 October 1962 in

Łowicz Łowicz is a town in central Poland with 27,436 inhabitants (2021). It is situated in the Łódź Voivodeship. Together with a nearby station of Bednary, Łowicz is a major rail junction of central Poland, where the line from Warsaw splits into ...

) is a Polish politician. From 2015 he has served as a member of the ''

Sejm The Sejm (), officially known as the Sejm of the Republic of Poland (), is the lower house of the bicameralism, bicameral parliament of Poland. The Sejm has been the highest governing body of the Third Polish Republic since the Polish People' ...

'', the

lower house A lower house is the lower chamber of a bicameral legislature, where the other chamber is the upper house. Although styled as "below" the upper house, in many legislatures worldwide, the lower house has come to wield more power or otherwise e ...

of the

Polish parliament The parliament of Poland is the Bicameralism, bicameral legislature of Poland. It is composed of an upper house (the Senate of Poland, Senate) and a lower house (the Sejm). Both houses are accommodated in the Sejm and Senate Complex of Poland, S ...

. Previously, from 2012 through 2014, he had been the appointed deputy governor of one of Poland’s 16 provinces, the central ''

voivodeship A voivodeship ( ) or voivodate is the area administered by a voivode (governor) in several countries of central and eastern Europe. Voivodeships have existed since medieval times and the area of extent of voivodeship resembles that of a duchy in ...

'' of

Łódź Łódź is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located south-west of Warsaw. Łódź has a population of 655,279, making it the country's List of cities and towns in Polan ...

Education

Bejda graduated as a mechanical engineer (1987) from Michał Oczapowski Academy of Agriculture and Technology (''Akademia Rolniczo-Techniczna'', now merged into the

University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn The University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn is a public university in Olsztyn, Poland. It was established on 1 September 1999, in accordance with the new Statute of Sejm signed by Polish President Aleksander Kwaśniewski, as well as Minister ...

). He also completed post-graduate managerial studies (2001) at the Lodz University of Technology (''Politechnika Łódzka''), and took further courses in real estate and property management (2009) at the

Jarosław Dąbrowski Jarosław Żądło-Dąbrowski (; 13 November 1836 – 23 May 1871), also known as Jaroslav Dombrowski, was a Polish nobleman (szlachta member) and military officer in the Imperial Russian Army, a Polish nationalist and radical republican for ...

Military Technical Academy (''Wojskowa Akademia Techniczna'') in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

, subsequently becoming professionally licensed in both areas.�
Paweł Bejda
” ''Strona sejmowa posła VIII kadencji'' (Party parliamentary deputies, 8th term), Polish ''Sejm''. Accessed 16 Oct. 2016

Work and political career

In 1988 Bejda began working at the State Machine Centre (''Państwowy Ośrodek Maszynowy'') in Łowicz. From 1990 to 1991, he was deputy manager of the Łowiczanka services

co-op A cooperative (also known as co-operative, coöperative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democr ...

(WUSP) in Poznań; that enterprise makes a range of products that include brushes, abrasive polishing disks, carpentry chisels, steel lamp posts and traffic lights.“ firmie��, Wytwórczo Usługowa Spółdzielnia Pracy (WUSP), Poznań. Accessed 16 Oct. 2016. For the next ten years he held managerial positions in private companies, first for Tarbej and later for Promyk.�
Wicewojewoda Łódzki: Paweł Bejda
” lodzkie.eu (Archive.org), accessed 26 Aug. 2014. From 2002 to 2006 Bejda was deputy mayor of

. In 2007 he became director of the

Skierniewice Skierniewice () is a city in central Poland with 45,184 inhabitants (2023), situated in the Łódź Voivodeship. It is the capital of Skierniewice County. Through the town runs the small river Łupia, also called Skierniewka. Located in the hist ...

county road traffic centre. In 2006 and again in 2010 he was elected as a

county councillor. On 25 April 2012 he relinquished this post as the Polish central government, on the nomination of governor Jolanta Chełmińska, appointed Bejda as Lodz’s deputy governor.
Wicewojewoda z Łowicza. Paweł Bejda jest nowym wicewojewodą łódzkim
' (“Paweł Bejda of Łowicz is new deputy governor of Łódź”), 26 April 2012. Accessed 16 Oct. 2016. In 2014 he was elected as a regional assemblyman for Łódź, and on 1 December that year, on a 19–13 vote, the regional assembly chose him as one of five members of the Łódź voivodeship

executive board A board of directors is a governing body that supervises the activities of a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government agency. The powers, duties, and responsibilities of a board of directors are determined by government regulations ...

.
Wybrano zarząd województwa łódzkiego; Witold Stępień oficjalnie został marszałkiem
' (“Lodz regional board chosen; Witold Stepien to be marshal”), ''Dziennik Łódzki'', December 1, 2014. Accessed 16 Oct. 2016. On 25 October 2015 he took part in the

parliamentary elections A general election is an electoral process to choose most or all members of a governing body at the same time. They are distinct from by-elections, which fill individual seats that have become vacant between general elections. General elections ...

, heading the centre-right

Polish People's Party The Polish People's Party (, PSL) is a conservative political party in Poland. It is currently led by Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz. Its history traces back to 1895, when it held the name People's Party, although its name was changed to the pre ...

's list of candidates in the 11th electoral district (Sieradz). Having received 7.86 percent of the votes, his party was entitled, by the

D'Hondt method The D'Hondt method, also called the Jefferson method or the greatest divisors method, is an apportionment method for allocating seats in parliaments among federal states, or in proportional representation among political parties. It belongs to ...

of allocating

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to any electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to political divisions (Political party, political parties) amon ...

seats, to one of Sieradz's 12 seats — a seat which Bejda, as the member of his party list with the most votes (6,283), currently holds in the ''Sejm.''
Wybory do Sejmu i Senatu, 2015
'' (“Elections to the Sejm and the Senate, 2015”). Accessed 16 Oct. 2016.

Esperanto activities

In 2009 Bejda supported publication by the Łowicz county council office, the ''

Starostwo ''Starostwo'' (literally " eldership") is an administrative unit established from the 14th century in the Polish Crown and later in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth until the partition of Poland in 1795. Starostwos were established in the ...

,'' of ''Eltondu Łowicz-Teron'', an Esperanto-language promotional report about the region, co-translated by Bejda and

Eduardo Kozyra Eduardo is the Spanish and Portuguese form of the male name Edward. Another version is Duarte. It may refer to: Association football * Dudu (footballer, born 1992) (Eduardo Pereira Rodrigues), Brazilian footballer * Eduardo (footballer, born 1 ...

. Its publication was facilitated by the fact that the Łowicz Esperanto group included prominent citizens such as his father Władysław Bejda, as well as Dr. Stephen Brzozowski and

Maria Wawrzyniec Rostworowski Maria may refer to: People * Mary, mother of Jesus * Maria (given name), a popular given name in many languages Place names Extraterrestrial *170 Maria, a Main belt S-type asteroid discovered in 1877 *Lunar maria (plural of ''mare''), large, da ...

, a priest in the Old Catholic Mariavite Church whose father was a bishop in that church. (The Mariavites had accepted the marriage of clergy and the

ordination of women The ordination of women to Minister of religion, ministerial or priestly office is an increasingly common practice among some contemporary major religious groups. It remains a controversial issue in certain religious groups in which ordination ...

.) In 2014, again thanks to Paweł Bejda, Jolanta Chełmońska, the governor of the Łódź voivodeship, sponsored a month-long Senate Esperanto exhibition in Łowicz, and deputy governor Bejda participated in the exhibition’s subsequent

vernissage A vernissage (from French, originally meaning "varnishing") is a preview of an art exhibition, which may be private, before the formal opening. If the vernissage is not open to the public, but only to invited guests, it is often called a '' pr ...

on 15 August 2014 to place it in the permanent collection at the loft gallery of the Łowicz Cultural Centre; Łowicz mayor Krzysztof Kaliński was another distinguished guest. The exhibition featured a display of Esperanto books and magazines, along with photographs and Polish-language museum signage depicting the main principles of Esperanto grammar and supplying information on the life of

Ludwik Zamenhof L. L. Zamenhof (15 December 185914 April 1917) was the creator of Esperanto, the most widely used constructed international auxiliary language. Zamenhof published Esperanto in 1887, although his initial ideas date back as far as 1873. He grew ...

, the creator of Esperanto. Eduardo Kozyra led several free five-day workshops teaching the basics of Esperanto,
ŁOK promuje esperanto
' (“Łowicz Cultural Centre promotes Esperanto”), 11 August 2014. Accessed 17 Oct. 2016. and Irena Grochowska performed ''Doktor Esperanto'', a dramatic monologue by Mario Migliucci portraying the life of Dr. Zamenhof. During the vernissage Bejda praised the

Esperanto movement The Esperanto movement, less commonly referred to as Esperantism (), is a movement to disseminate the use of the planned international language Esperanto.See the definition in theDeklaracio pri la Esenco de la Esperantismo ("Bulonja Deklaracio ...

, mentioning that his father was an

Esperantist An Esperantist () is a person who speaks, reads or writes Esperanto. According to the Declaration of Boulogne, a document agreed upon at the first World Esperanto Congress in 1905, an Esperantist is someone who speaks Esperanto and uses it for ...

and that as a child his father, Władysław Bejda, had first read to him the great epic poem ''

Pan Tadeusz ''Pan Tadeusz'' (full title: ''Sir Thaddeus, or the Last Foray in Lithuania: A Nobility's Tale of the Years 1811–1812, in Twelve Books of Verse'') is an epic poem by the Polish people, Polish poet, writer, translator and philosopher Adam Micki ...

'' — not in the original Polish but in

Antoni Grabowski Antoni Grabowski (11 June 1857 – 4 July 1921)Julius Glück, ''El la klasika periodo de Esperanto (Grabowski kaj Kabe)'', en Muusses Esperanto Biblioteko No. 5, Purmerend, 1937. p. 6. was a Polish chemical engineer, and an activist of the early ...

's Esperanto translation.
Łowicz uczcił 125-lecie esperanto
' (“Łowicz celebrates 125th anniversary of Esperanto”), 15 August 2014, ''Łódzki Urząd Wojewódzki w Łódzi''. Accessed 17 Oct. 2016. Before the October 2015 Polish parliamentary elections, the Polish branch of

Europe–Democracy–Esperanto Europe–Democracy–Esperanto (EDE, E–D–E, or E° D° E°; Esperanto: ''Eŭropo–Demokratio–Esperanto'') is a pro-Esperanto European political alliance regularly participating in European elections. The party's main platform is the intr ...

(EDE-Poland), an electoral list that has participated in three

European Parliament elections Elections to the European Parliament take place every five years by Universal suffrage, universal adult suffrage; with more than 400 million people eligible to vote, they are the second largest democratic elections in the world after Electio ...

(2004, 2009 and 2014) called for Polish Esperantists to vote for candidates belonging to the ''Parlamenta Grupo Apoganta Esperanton'' (parliamentary group supporting Esperanto, PGAE) — a group of 15 elected Polish deputies and senators — and 12 other named candidates said to speak Esperanto or at least judged to be very favourable towards the language. Among those elected that year who had been named on this list was Paweł Bejda.Eduardo Kozyra
Facebook posting of 21 October 2015. Accessed 17 Oct. 2016. After EDE-Poland's executive board formally congratulated him on his election to the Polish ''Sejm,'' Bejda invited EDE's president, Eduardo Kozyra, to meet him in Łowicz. At the meeting he promised to help organize the PGAE caucus during his term of office. After a popularity poll of its readers, the ''Dziennik Łódzki'' newspaper selected Paweł Bejda as its Łowicz district "Person of the Year" for 2015; he led a field of nine candidates its readers could vote for.

' (“2015 Person of the Year, Łowicz district ”), ''Dziennik Łódzki'', December 1, 2014. Accessed 16 Oct. 2016.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bejda, Paweł 1962 births Living people Members of the Polish Sejm 2015–2019 Members of the Polish Sejm 2019–2023 People from Łowicz Polish People's Party politicians Polish Esperantists University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn alumni Members of the Polish Sejm 2023–2027