1994 Polish local elections

1994 Polish regional assembly election

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The 1994 Polish local elections were held on 19 June 1994.

Representatives for the following were chosen:

• 2468 municipal councils,
• 7 district councils in the gmina Warszawa-Centrum,
• Warsaw City Council

In small towns and municipalities, the public did not require special advertising and self-presentation from candidates, although they sometimes appeared in the local press. Candidates who were well-known in their districts were limited to collecting signatures and informal meetings in small groups. In multi-mandate districts there were posters promoting individuals, and only a few chose to appear in the local media, but TV election programmes were characterised by low appeal. New to the campaign were festivals often organised in larger towns, often combined with primaries. Inadequate promotion resulted in a lack of public interest in voting.^[1]

The role of the 1990 voter committees was taken over by the political parties. Already in the pre-election period, the parties tried to form local government-political coalitions. The merger of the Democratic Union and the Liberal Democratic Congress resulted in the formation of a new party, the Freedom Union, which established local coalitions such as the Freedom and Local Government Union (Polish: Unia Wolności i Samorządności), the Wrocław 2000 Civic Coalition (Polish: Koalicja Obywatelska "Wrocław 2000"), the Gdańsk UW-PK Coalition and the Kraków Your City Coalition (Polish: Koalicja Krakowska "Twoje Miasto").

Right-wing groups also formed ad hoc electoral coalitions, such as Centre Right for Warsaw (Polish: Centroprawica dla Warszawy) and Right Together (Polish: Prawica Razem) in Kraków.^[1] The National Party also participated in the election, running independently in regions such as Poznań, while entering coalitions with right-leaning parties in other. It participated in a coalition Rightist Łódź (Polish: Prawa Łódź) organized by parties such as the Party of Christian Democrats, the Christian National Union, and Peasants' Agreement.^[2]

In Poznań, a common list united 14 right-wing organisations, while the Democratic Left Alliance, Polish People's Party and Labour Union issued lists under their own names (the exception was Warsaw, where these parties created one list). Far-left parties such as the Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland and the Polish Socialist Party did not enter electoral alliances. Although local government elections in large cities were dominated by political groupings, there were also committees expressing local interests; such committees were more common in small municipalities, where, in principle, candidates did not have to form an electoral representation. The lack of need to demonstrate party affiliation is also evidenced by the names of local committees, in which voters were not able to see political affiliations.^[1]

The elections were held on 19 June 1994, and were largely ignored by the popular population. The election was dominated by local electoral committees representing local interests, with names such as "Citizens of ...", "For the Common Good Inter-Parish Agreement", "Firefighters", "Allotmentists", "Co-operative Committee". Parties such as SLD, UP, PSL and UW ran under their own names. Andrzej Piasecki wrote that most committees contained candidates with centre-right political views. In cities of 40,000 or more, there were 761 elecotral lists and 39,839 candides in total, contesting for 5337 seats. In other gminas there were 142,061 candidates contesting 46,569 seats.^[4]

Turnout for municipal councils reached 33,78% with 1,60% invalid votes. Moreover, 1,69% of ballots cast were blank. In comparison, in the 1990 Polish local elections, 3% of the ballots were invalid and 5% were blank - because of this, media noted that Polish voters were getting used to electoral procedures.^[5] Morever, the election brought about the domination of political parties - 64% of elected councillors belonged to a political party.^[1] This marked a considerable change from the 1990 local elections, where only around a quarter (27,6%) of councillors were from political parties - in comparison, 39% of newly-elected councillors were independent, and 46,1% came from voter committees.^[6]

There was almost no electoral campaign activity, which also translated into low turnout of 33,78%. Media campaigns started very late, at the end of May 1994. One of the leading issues during the election was decommunization - many streets had been renamed, which was seen as controversial and confusing by most voters. Some candidates addressed this issue by pledging to not change the street plaques, thus keeping the old socialist names. Most voters were also unaware of the candidates and parties, saved for the most established ones like SLD and PSL. Media discussed the mysteriousness of the names of many election committees, such as "Alliance for ..." or "City League". The profileration of unknown committees and names discouraged voters.^[7] The capitalist reforms, rising unemployment and lack of prospects also translated into growing social pessimism.^[8]

Almost half of the elected councillors were re-electees from the 1990 election or from the Communist Poland. In large cities, 62% of seats were acquired by political parties. SLD won in 29 voivodeship capital cities. Whereas SLD won in northern, western and central Poland, rightwing parties won in southern and eastern Poland. Center-right coalitions won in eight voivodeship capitals, and the Freedom Union with its allies in seven. The rest were won by local coalitions. In the gminas, PSL was the most successful party.^[4]