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Presidential elections in Poland
Presidential elections were held in Poland on 5 November 1995, with a second round on 19 November. The leader of Social Democracy, Aleksander Kwaśniewski, and incumbent president Lech Wałęsa advanced to the second round. Kwaśniewski won the election with 52% of the vote in the run-off against 48% for Wałęsa.
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Presidential elections were held in Poland on 5 November 1995, with a second round on 19 November. The leader of Social Democracy, Aleksander Kwaśniewski, and incumbent president Lech Wałęsa advanced to the second round. Kwaśniewski won the election with 52% of the vote in the run-off against 48% for Wałęsa.
Lech Wałęsa was elected and sworn in as President in December 1990, succeeding Wojciech Jaruzelski and leading to the ultimate end of communist rule in Poland. Soon after his inauguration, Wałęsa's presently primary rival Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki resigned and was followed by Jan Krzysztof Bielecki, a liberal and economist relatively loyal to Wałęsa. Regardless of the cabinet changes, Bielecki's time as prime minister would largely follow the course set by his predecessor.
The 1991 Polish parliamentary election saw the Democratic Union (UD) become the largest party, later supplanted by the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) after Aleksander Hall's Conservatives split off from UD. After the downfall of Jan Olszewski's cabinet, and Hanna Suchocka's cabinet which succeeded it, new elections were called.
The 1993 Polish parliamentary election saw SLD become the largest party, winning a plurality with 171 seats — 37.2% of the 460-seat Sejm — while receiving only 20.4% of the vote. SLD governed in a coalition with the Polish People's Party.
Wałęsa maintained an overwhelmingly negative approval rating throughout the second half of his term, with his approval becoming positive only during a period of increased polarization before the second turn of the 1995 presidential election.
During SdRP's Congress on 13 May, Kwaśniewski secured his party's endorsement for president with 296 out of 300 votes. Some delegates believed Józef Oleksy should become the candidate instead. A poll conducted in December 1994 suggested 71% of potential SLD voters supported Kwaśniewski as the party's candidate, 7% supported Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz and 16% supported Oleksy.
Lech Wałęsa was endorsed by the Bloc. A sizable part of anti-Wałęsa, reformist activists in the Bloc, like Andrzej Olechowski or Zbigniew Religa split off before the election, the latter forming the Partia Republikanie, which supported Marek Markiewicz after Religa dissented with his party's intention to run himself as its candidate. Markiewicz dropped out and endorsed Wałęsa before the first round of the election. Besides his own party, Wałęsa received the endorsement of other parties: a section of the ZChN endorsed him on 18 September, later joined by the rest of the party (though it didn't revoke its endorsement of their original candidate, Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz) on 29 October.
During the 2nd Congress of the Freedom Union, three candidates decided to enter the party's candidate selection process: Jacek Kuroń, Janusz Onyszkiewicz and Hanna Suchocka. Suchocka, despite being the highest-ranking of the former three candidates, came last in the first round. The second round of voting saw Kuroń defeat Onyszkiewicz by a slight margin of 11 votes, and the former Minister of Labour became the party's official candidate for president. A poll conducted in December 1994 suggested 53% of potential UW voters supported Kuroń as the party's candidate, 15% supported Leszek Balcerowicz and 25% supported Suchocka.
With variously successful attempts of uniting the extraparliamentary right, several possible candidates were presented to lead it in the presidential election, most prominently of those affiliated with the Centre Agreement or its splinters, Lech Kaczyński, Jan Olszewski or Adam Strzembosz. On 27 March, Strzembosz declared his intentions to run for president, gaining the support of conventionally right-wing parties around him - the Centre Agreement, Christian-Peasant Party and Conservative Coalition, as well as the more centrist Conservative Party of Aleksander Hall. Strzembosz, alongside other activists of the right including Jan Olszewski, attempted to legitimise his candidacy at the Convent of St. Catherine. After its collapse in July, Jan Olszewski started an individual presidential campaign under his party, the Movement for the Republic, who the PC considered supporting instead of Strzembosz due to dissatisfaction with him sidelining the party's staffers and platform, especially its tough on crime positions. However, on 4 September the party chose to proclaim Lech Kaczyński as their nominee instead. After failure to gain much support, Strzembosz abandoned his candidacy on 16 September, endorsing Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, one of the pretendents at the Convent of St. Catherine. Both Kaczyński and Olszewski also attempted to court the endorsement of the Solidarity trade union from Wałęsa, but failed, as the union endorsed the incumbent president on 18 October. Similarly to many other of the right's candidates, Kaczyński dropped out of the race on 30 October due to his poor performance and endorsed Olszewski. A poll conducted in December 1994 suggested 13% of potential voters for the extraparliamentary right supported Olszewski as the party's candidate, 11% supported Kaczyński and 6% supported Strzembosz. Another 9% supported right-libertarian Janusz Korwin-Mikke (UPR) and 8% supported Alicja Grześkowiak (PC).
Pawlak was selected as the party's candidate. He was challenged most prominently by Józef Zych at the party's convention, however, Zych resigned from seeking the candidacy. A poll conducted in December 1994 suggested 68% of potential PSL voters supported Pawlak as the party's candidate, 1% supported Janusz Piechociński and 9% supported Zych.
In November 1994, the Convent of St. Catherine was organised by Józef Maj, coordinating several extraparliamentary center to right-wing parties, like the Christian-Democratic Labour Party (ChDSP), Confederation of Independent Poland, Party of Christian Democrats (PChD), Peasants' Agreement, Polish People's Party (Mikołaczykowskie faction), Movement for the Republic, Third Republic Movement, Party of Polish Democracy, National-Democratic Party, Christian National Union, Polish Union (ZP), Solidarity or Rural Solidarity. The Convent's purpose was to serve as a discussion forum for the marginal extraparliamentary parties trying to coalesce into a political force able to cross the 5% threshold and enter the Sejm after the last election's wipeout result for the fragmented parties. In the Summer of 1995, the Convent agreed to hold meetings to select a joint presidential candidate for that year's election. Out of the many candidates that expressed interest in becoming the candidate, the quickest to withdraw was Jan Parys, soon after Roman Ciesielski, Wojciech Ziembinski, Henryk Bąk and Adam Strzembosz stopped being contenders. The remaining candidates, Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, Leszek Moczulski and Jan Olszewski, ultimately entered a dispute over the results a ballot held to elect the Convent's candidate, as on the 19th of July, Gronkiewicz-Waltz's, followed by Olszewski's supporters both claimed victory for their candidates. Due to the inability of the Convent to decide on a candidate, it was ultimately disbanded and all three of the remaining candidates ran their own presidential campaigns, though Moczulski ultimately withdrew and endorsed Wałęsa. Gronkiewicz-Waltz later tried to court the endorsements of right-wing candidates like Olszewski and Lech Kaczyński. A group of ZChN activists, including Jan Łopuszański and Henryk Goryszewski, titled "Inicjatywa 44", broke away from the Gronkiewicz-Waltz campaign to support Wałęsa instead, being accepted into his campaign staff on 18 September. On 29 October, the rest of ZChN, beyond the Inicjatywa 44 group, endorsed Lech Wałęsa without withdrawing their support for Gronkiewicz-Waltz. Ultimately, she remained with only the concrete endorsements of the SLCh, ZP, PK, KK and ChDSP.
The following candidates registered to run, but failed to cross the threshold of 100,000 signatures required to run in the election:
The two favorites throughout the course of the campaign were the leader of the post-communist SLD Aleksander Kwaśniewski and incumbent president Lech Wałęsa. Kwaśniewski ran a campaign of change and blamed the economic problems in Poland on the post-Solidarity right. His campaign slogan was "Let's choose the future" (Wybierzmy przyszłość). Political opponents challenged his candidacy, and produced evidence to show that he had lied about his education in registration documents and public presentations. There was also some mystery over his graduation from university. A law court confirmed that Kwaśniewski had lied about his record, but did not penalize him for it, judging the information irrelevant to the election result. Meanwhile, Wałęsa was a very unpopular president and some opinion polls even showed that he might not make it into the second round. He was challenged by other post-Solidarity politicians of all sides of the political spectrum ranging from liberal former Minister of Labour and Social Policy Jacek Kuroń to conservative former Prime Minister Jan Olszewski. Rather than focusing on his presidency, he focused on his personal image as an everyday man turned international hero that was created for him while he was chairman of Solidarity. His campaign slogan was "There are many candidates but there is only one Lech Wałęsa" (Kandydatów jest wielu – Lech Wałęsa tylko jeden).
Kwaśniewski won with 52% of the vote in the run-off. 65% of voters voted in the first round and 68% in the second round.
With increasing tension surrounding the election, occasional political violence occurred, primarily from right-wing groups fearing the return of communism in Poland. Individual opponents of Kwaśniewski spontaneously threw food at him, or acted aggressively around his supporters. In Przemyśl, an incident occurred where tear gas was used to disrupt a rally.
During the signature collection process in Lublin, activists collecting signatures for Kwaśniewski and Kuroń were chased out by youth activists of the Stronnictwo Narodowe „Szczerbiec” (Polish: Stronnictwo Narodowe „Szczerbiec”) under the lead of Konrad Rękas, who chanted slogans like "Go steal from Jerusalem" (Polish: Jedźcie okradać Jerozolimę). In Autumn, when Kwaśniewski arrived to campaign in Lublin, "Szczerbiec" and Republican League activists attempted to break into his campaign bus, culminating in a brawl. On 14 November, five days before the second round of the election, "Szczerbiec" organized a rally in Lublin to honor Eligiusz Niewiadomski, the assassin of Poland's first President, Gabriel Narutowicz. The demonstrating students declared "Niewiadomski is amongst us", and hanging posters of Kwaśniewski with a revolver to his temple.
On 10 September 1995, Jan Maria Rokita, a politician of the Freedom Union's right wing, created the 3/4 Initiative, named after the claim that 3/4 of voters opposed Kwaśniewski's candidacy, instead collecting signatures for Gronkiewicz-Waltz, Kuroń, Wałęsa and Kaczyński. The Initiative, associating "fanatical" liberals, attempted to disrupt Kwaśniewski's field campaign, and following Kwaśniewski's victory, helped Wałęsa in attempting to contest the election's results. Following the Supreme Court's confirmation of the validity of the election, a group of 300 people, joined by politicians like Ryszard Czarnecki, surrounded the headquarters of Social Democracy of the Republic of Poland, throwing fireworks and demanding annulment of the elections.
Lech Wałęsa contested the election results, but they were reaffirmed by the Supreme Court.
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