History of Poland (1989–present)
Tension grew between the people of Poland and its communist government, as with the rest of the Eastern bloc as the influence of the Soviet Union faded.
With the advent of perestroika in the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev, the opportunity arose to change the system of government, after the harsh period of martial law (1981-83) imposed by general Wojciech Jaruzelski.
The government's inability to forestall Poland's economic decline led to waves of strikes across the country in April, May and August 1988.
The round-table agreement called for a communist president, and on July 19, the National Assembly, with the support of a number of Solidarity deputies, elected General Wojciech Jaruzelski to that office.
In December 1989, the Sejm approved the government's reform program to transform the Polish economy rapidly from centrally planned to free-market, amended the constitution to eliminate references to the "leading role" of the Communist Party, and renamed the country the "Republic of Poland".
The cabinet was reshuffled in July 1990; the national defence and interior affairs ministers (hold-overs from the previous communist government) were among those replaced.
Jan Krzysztof Bielecki, at Wałęsa's request, formed a government and served as its prime minister until October 1991, introducing world prices and greatly expanding the scope of private enterprise.
Olszewski was replaced by Hanna Suchocka as the first woman Prime Minister of Poland in 1992 after Janusz Korwin-Mikke wanted all members of the Sejm who had cooperated with the communist secret police to be revealed.
Article 35 guaranteed the rights of national and ethnic minorities, while other provisions prohibited discrimination and political organizations that spread racial hatred.
It is thought that the opposition campaign was hindered by their inability to put forward a charismatic (or even a single major) candidate, as well as falling support for the centre-right AWS government.
The most important changes included: In the September 2001 parliamentary elections, the SLD triumphed on the back of voter disillusionment with the AWS government and internal bickering within that bloc.
The most famous of these were the Rywin affair (an alleged attempt to interfere with the legislative process, so named after the main suspect Lew Rywin) -- this case was investigated by a special parliamentary committee, whose proceedings were televised and widely followed), and the Starachowice affair [pl] (government ministers informed friends with links to an organized crime about an impending raid).
In March some prominent SLD politicians and MPs (including the then Speaker of the Sejm: Marek Borowski) formed a split, creating the new Social Democracy of Poland party.
Part of the reason is that this government was considered to be largely apart from the party backbone, and only held in an office by the fear of early elections by the majority of the MPs.
September's parliamentary poll was expected to produce a coalition of two centre-right parties, PiS (Law and Justice) and PO (Civic Platform).
During the increasingly bitter campaign, however, PiS launched a strong attack on the liberal economic policies of their allies and overtook PO in opinion polls.
This continues the trend that in every free parliamentary election the Polish electorate has voted against the current government, turning to the left in 1993 and 2001, and to the right in 1997 and 2005.
The early favourite, Donald Tusk, leader of the PO, saw his opinion poll lead slip away and was beaten 54% to 46% in the second round by the PiS candidate Lech Kaczyński (one of the twins, founders of the party).
However, the severity of the campaign attacks and the willingness of PiS to court the populist vote had soured the relationship between the two largest parties and made the creation of a stable coalition impossible.
PiS then formed a minority government with the previously little-known Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz as prime minister instead of party leader, Jarosław Kaczyński who remained influential in the background.
A parliamentary crisis appeared to loom in January 2006, with these small populist parties fearing that PiS was about to force new elections (on which they would lose out) by using the pretext of failing to pass the budget within the constitutional timeframe.
The following 15 months were erratic and not without controversy, as the government pursued lustration policies, established a Central Anticorruption Bureau with far-reaching powers and was embroiled in a case relating to the suicide of an MP who was under investigation for corruption.
The uneasy alliance between the three coalition partners came to a head in July 2007 when Samoobrona leader, Andrzej Lepper, was dismissed from his position as Minister for Agriculture following a secret investigation by the Central Anticorruption Bureau (CBA) which attempted to link him and his department to corruptive practices.
On 10 April 2010, numerous high-ranking Polish statesmen died in the Smolensk air crash, including Lech Kaczyński, the President of Poland at the time.
[11] As there are no legal objections, critics and the primarily concerned US mass media outlet (Discovery, Inc.) raise that this would be an attack on the expression of free speech.
[17] In October 2023, the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party won the largest share of the vote in the election, but lost its majority in parliament.
[18] The United Right alliance placed first for the third straight election and won a plurality of seats but fell short of a Sejm majority.
[22] His cabinet had been mockingly dubbed the "Two Weeks Government" by Polish media due to its low likelihood of passing the confidence vote.
[30] On December 19, 2023, the Sejm passed a resolution on "restoring the legal order and the impartiality and integrity of the public media and the Polish Press Agency" with 244 votes in favor.
[33] The uneasy alliance between the three coalition partners came to difficult points when it comes to abortion, civil unions (which in the end became a govt bill) or health insurance contribution.
