First Published: Frontline, Vol. 3, No. 9, October 28, 1985.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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The Solidarity underground called for a boycott of the Polish elections October 13, but it got little to show for its bluster. Instead, 79% of voters went to the polls in the first parliamentary elections since March 1980 – the high point of Solidarity’s influence – endorsing the process of national renewal led by the Polish United Workers Party (PUWP).
PUWP leader General Wojciech Jaruzelski had termed the elections “an event of great importance” in returning the country to normal after the stormy years of Solidarity and martial law. The elections were also an indicator of the extent to which the PUWP itself had been restored.
The remnants of the increasingly peripheral Solidarity trade union, now underground, hoped that a boycott would prove their movement still had wide support. Since the PUWP could not force people to vote (in Poland, there are no penalties for abstention, as in other East and West European nations), elections would be a measure of how many Poles took their lead from the party and how many from Solidarity. Solidarity leader Lech Walesa had predicted a turnout of less than 50%.
Solidarity’s election failure comes eight months after its unsuccessful call for a nationwide strike, and indicates that Solidarity’s calls to action are less and less heeded by the Polish population.
A more influential force in the elections was the Catholic Church, now the chief anticommunist voice in Poland. Apparently recognizing that outright support for the boycott would open them up to charges of interfering with the state, the Church took a “neutral” position – neither for nor against the elections.
Some clergy openly urged their flock to boycott the elections and others encouraged them to vote; but all of Poland’s leading cardinals made it a point to be in Rome during the elections. The Church’s official position could only have encouraged apathy and cynicism and objectively contributed to voter abstention. It therefore played into Solidarity’s designs, even though it did not appeal directly for support of the Solidarity boycott.
The 20% who did not vote apparently represent a distinct trend of the population made up of both diehard Solidarity supporters and skeptics who are not yet convinced that the PUWP’s leadership can steer Poland out of its continuing economic crisis. While the worst shortages of goods have been curtailed through assistance from the other socialist nations and increases in production, the Polish economy is still in difficult straits. Poland has a $29 billion debt to Western banks and a trade surplus last year $1 billion short of what Poland needs just to payoff the current interest.
The 79% participation rate is still far from the over 90% who vote in most socialist countries, though it is higher than the 75 voting in last year’s local elections in Poland.
Another dramatic result of the elections was the ushering into office of an entirely new group of legislators. Only 20 of those elected had been in the previous parliament, reflecting a general PUWP commitment to renew all government institutions after the heyday of Solidarity when corruption and self-interest reigned supreme.
These results follow over four months of an unprecedented campaign to inform voters of the issues and expose the candidates to the largest number of people. The government organized voter meetings with candidates in every district and region and spent millions in media coverage, unlike any previous election.
The process was aimed at guaranteeing the best candidates, whether or not they were in the PUWP. Four hundred and ten of the 460 seats in parliament were contested by two candidates; the other 50candidates were widely popular national figures around whom there was a consensus – half of whom, including General Jaruzelski, were in the PUWP.
As it turned out, 245 of the 460 candidates elected (53%) were PUWP members – not significantly different than in the past. One hundred and six (23%) were from the United Peasants Party, 35 (7.6%) from the Democratic Party (a party of small entrepreneurs), and 74 (16%) were independents and members of other small parties, including Catholics.
The ballots did not carry a party designation, since the emphasis was on encouraging people to vote for individuals based on their leadership qualities, integrity and honesty. This accords with the PUWP’s policy of strengthening the Polish Movement for National Renewal, a broad front including Catholics and communists who are prepared to work together to solve the knotty economic and social problems facing the nation.
Solidarity predicted there would be fraud in reporting election results long before the polls opened, and was quick to charge that the data on participation were phony. Yet even the Western news media had to admit that there was no way to corroborate their charge, and that polling places appeared busy throughout the day.
In sum, while the elections seem to have been a successful test of the PUWP’s leadership and repudiation of Solidarity, it is only one step in the process of re-establishing the party’s leading role. As General Jaruzelski pointed out at the June plenary meeting of the PUWP’s Central Committee, “We are no longer an encircled fortress, but are not yet an army on the offensive.”