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 Polish presidential election, 1990 election, Wałę ...
(''Komitet Obywatelski przy Lechu Wałęsie''), was an initially semi-legal political organisation of the democratic opposition in
Communist Poland.
[''Daily Report: East Europe'', Issues 181-190. United States, The Service, 1990. 50.]
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
The Round Table (; ; ; ) is King Arthur's famed table (furniture), table in the Arthurian legend, around which he and his knights congregate. As its name suggests, it has no head, implying that everyone who sits there has equal status, unlike co ...
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'', then edited by
Tadeusz Mazowiecki
Tadeusz Mazowiecki (; 18 April 1927 – 28 October 2013) was a Polish author, journalist, philanthropist and politician, formerly one of the leaders of the Solidarity movement, and the first non-communist Polish prime minister since 1946, hav ...
; and the new ''
Gazeta Wyborcza
(; ''The Electoral Gazette'' in English) is a Polish nationwide daily newspaper based in Warsaw, Poland. It was launched on 8 May 1989 on the basis of the Polish Round Table Agreement and as a press organ of the Solidarity (Polish trade union), t ...
'' (today Poland's largest daily paper), edited by
Adam Michnik
Adam Michnik (; born 17 October 1946) is a Polish historian, essayist, former Anti-communist resistance in Poland (1944–1989), dissident, Intellectual#Public intellectual, public intellectual, as well as co-founder and editor-in-chief of the P ...
and launched on 8 May 1989, became influential organs for the movement. Its name came from the
independent union Solidarity
Solidarity or solidarism is an awareness of shared interests, objectives, standards, and sympathies creating a psychological sense of unity of groups or classes. True solidarity means moving beyond individual identities and single issue politics ...
.
History
According to the Round Table Agreement, 35%, i.e. 161 out of 460 seats in the so-called "
Contract Sejm
Contract Sejm () is a term commonly applied to the Sejm ("parliament") elected in the Polish parliamentary elections of 1989. The ''contract'' refers to an agreement reached by the Polish United Workers' Party and the Solidarność ("solidarity ...
" (''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 (, , ) 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 documents from reader to reader. The practice of manual rep ...
print shops, which had been operating throughout the 1980s. Every candidate had an article in ''
Gazeta Wyborcza
(; ''The Electoral Gazette'' in English) is a Polish nationwide daily newspaper based in Warsaw, Poland. It was launched on 8 May 1989 on the basis of the Polish Round Table Agreement and as a press organ of the Solidarity (Polish trade union), t ...
'' 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 (, ), 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 legally permitted subordinate minor parti ...
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 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. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...
, making him the first ever non-Communist head of government east of the
Iron Curtain
The Iron Curtain was the political and physical 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. On the east side of the Iron Curtain were countries connected to the So ...
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
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
The Centre Agreement (, PC) 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 Jarosła ...
(''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 in an air crash. The aircraft carrying ...
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 (, ROAD) was a List of political parties in Poland, political faction in Poland coalescing several members of the Solidarity Citizens' Committee.
History Background
On 24 August 1989, Tadeusz Mazowi ...
(''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 (''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, with PC becoming the foundation of the
Law and Justice
Law and Justice ( , PiS) is a Right-wing populism, right-wing populist and National conservatism, national-conservative List of political parties in Poland, political party in Poland. The party is a member of European Conservatives and Refo ...
(''Prawo i Sprawiedliwość'', PiS) party and
Civic Platform
The Civic Platform (, PO)The party is officially the Civic Platform of the Republic of Poland (''Platforma Obywatelska Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej''). is a Centre-right politics, centre-right liberal conservative political party in Poland. Since ...
(''Platforma Obywatelska'', PO) being a split from UW.
Election Results
Presidential
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' ...
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
1991 disestablishments in Poland
Solidarity (Polish trade union)
Political parties disestablished in 1996