Poland:  Still a nation of Solidarity?

Government
Government Type: Republic 
Legal System:  mixture of Continental (Napoleonic) civil law and holdover Communist legal theory; changes being gradually introduced as part of broader democratization process; limited judicial review of legislative acts, but rulings of the Constitutional Tribunal are final; court decisions can be appealed to the European Court of Justice in Strasbourg

Dual Executive
President and Prime Minister each have executive powers
like French system, but president now weaker than French president

Power struggle Walesa and Sejms of the early 1990s

New Constitution:  PM/Sejm supreme with some powers and checks for the president

Has power to sign treaties, control armed forces, must sign bills into law

President directly elected; 5 year term; re-election possible
2 ballot election
 
The Executive Branch
Chief of State: Andrzej Duda

Office of the President’s Website

Politico on Duda

Duda's Twitter feed

Head of Government: Mateusz Morawiecki (2022)

Cabinet:   Council of Ministers responsible to the prime minister and the Sejm

The Legislative Branch
Bicameral legislature consisting of
Upper House
The Senate (Senat)
100 seats
members are elected by a majority vote (first past the post) on a provincial basis to serve four-year terms; seats per province vary from 2-4; elections held simultaneously with Sejm

Lower House
The Sejm

Sejm official site

460 seats
members are elected under a complex system of proportional representation

(multi-member districts)

 to serve four-year terms
5% threshold (except for German minority-guaranteed seat) and 8% threshold for coalition

Factionalism, splintering very typical

Shift to the right, collapse of the left over 21st Century

2005 Sejm votes by powiat (county)

2015 Sejm vote by powiat

Strong Left-Right Cleavage:  2015 united left collapses; fails to get 8% threshold needed to be rep'd in Sejm

Results of 2019 Sejm Elections:  Victory for PiS 

Law and Justice Party (PiS)
    right wing party
    former Electoral Action Solidarity (AWS) and 

    Ruch (Civic Movement of Poland) (ROP) members 

    the more right-leaning factions of Solidarity electoral coalition

    traditional, Euroskeptic, populist
    social policies based on Catholic Church
    anti-communist (pro "lustration")

BUT 

        Economically, leftist
        state-guaranteed minimum social safety-net
        intervention of the state into economic issues
        proposes two personal tax rates (18% and 32%)
        tax rebates related to the number of children in a family
        reduction of the VAT rate
        privatisation with the exclusion of several dozen state companies
        of strategic importance for the country
        PiS opposes cutting social welfare spending
        proposes the introduction of a system of state-guaranteed housing loan

    Politically  
        for centralizing power - removing governing bodies over media, monetary policy
       giving president decree powers

       pro-EU and keeping Polish forces in Iraq for one more year (since election)

Civic Platform (KO)

Merger of some of post-Solidarity party (AWS) and
    Freedom Union (UW) (center liberal party) 

    and 2005 Democratic Party (PD)

    Democratic Union and Liberal-Democratic    
    Congress;
  

What are the for?

Individual liberty, centrist, pro EU integration
     Market-driven economy (neo-liberals)
    former Foreign Minister and MEP Bronislaw Geremek
   (d. 2008; killed in car accident)

Part of the ALDE parliamentary group in the EU

 
Democratic Left Alliance (SLD)
Post communist successor party

Professional, pragmatic, social-democratic, pro-business, pro-NATO, pro-EU

Party of two-term president Aleksander Kwasniewski, who succeeded Wałęsa

The most successful party in Poland til scandals under Leszek Miller’s government 

Ran in electoral alliance United Left Alliance with the Greens, Unia Pracy, and Twój Ruch in 2015

**Won NO seats** for first time

Failed to reach 8% threshold needed for electoral alliances