1989 Polish parliamentary election

1989 Polish parliamentary election
Polish People's Republic
← 1985 4 June 1989 (first round)
18 June 1989 (second round)
1991 →
Turnout62.7% (first round)
25% (second round)
Sejm

All 460 seats in the Sejm
161 seats up for free election
231 seats needed for a majority
Party Leader Vote % Seats
Seats reserved for the Patriotic Movement for National Rebirth (299)
Polish United Workers' Party Wojciech Jaruzelski 173
United People's Party Roman Malinowski 76
Alliance of Democrats Tadeusz Witold Młyńczak [pl] 27
PAX Association Zenon Komender [pl] 10
Christian-Social Union [pl] Kazimierz Morawski [pl] 8
Polish Catholic Social Association [pl] Wiesław Gwiżdż [pl] 5
Freely-contested seats (161)
Solidarity Citizens' Committee Lech Wałęsa 71.29 161
This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below.
Senate

All 100 seats in the Senate
51 seats needed for a majority
Party Vote % Seats
Solidarity Citizens' Committee

71.28 99
Patriotic Movement for National Rebirth

28.72 1
This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below.
Sejm results by constituency
Government before Government after election
Rakowski cabinet
PZPRZSLSD
(Communist regime)
Mazowiecki cabinet[a]
SolidarityZSLSD
(Contract Sejm)

Parliamentary elections were held in Poland on 4 June 1989 to elect members of the Sejm and the recreated Senate, with a second round on 18 June. They were the first elections in the country since the communist government abandoned its monopoly of power in April 1989 and the first elections in the Eastern Bloc that resulted in the communist government losing power.

Not all seats in the Sejm were allowed to be contested, but the resounding victory of the Solidarity opposition in the freely contested races (the rest of the Sejm seats and all of the Senate) paved the way to the end of communist rule in Poland. Solidarity won all of the freely contested seats in the Sejm, and all but one seat in the Senate, which was scored by a government-aligned nonpartisan candidate.[1] Most crucially, the election served as a litmus test showing how extremely anti-government the attitude of the nation was. In the aftermath of the election, Poland became the first country of the Eastern Bloc in which democratically elected representatives gained real power.[2] Although the elections were not entirely democratic, they led to the formation of a government led by Tadeusz Mazowiecki and a peaceful transition to democracy in Poland and elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe.[3][4][5]


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  1. ^ Paulina Codogni (2012). Wybory czerwcowe 1989 roku. Polish Institute of National Remembrance. p. 297. ISBN 978-83-7629-342-4.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Hill1992 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Geoffrey Pridham (1994). Democratization in Eastern Europe: domestic and international perspectives. Psychology Press. p. 176. ISBN 978-0-415-11063-1. Retrieved 4 June 2011.
  4. ^ Olav Njølstad (2004). The last decade of the Cold War: from conflict escalation to conflict transformation. Psychology Press. p. 59. ISBN 978-0-7146-8539-7. Retrieved 4 June 2011.
  5. ^ Atsuko Ichijō; Willfried Spohn (2005). Entangled identities: nations and Europe. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 166. ISBN 978-0-7546-4372-2. Retrieved 4 June 2011.