Partia Demokratyczna - demokraci.pl
Encyclopedia
The Democratic Party abbreviated to PD, is a centrist
, liberal
political party
in Poland
. It has no members of the Sejm, Senate, or European Parliament
.
Its foundation was publicly announced on 28 February 2005 and formally established on 9 May 2005 as an 'enlargement' of the Christian democratic
Freedom Union
, which it legally succeeds. At the 2007 election
to the Sejm, the party ran as part of the Left and Democrats
(LiD) list, and won three of the alliance's 53 seats. These members left the party in 2009 to join the newly-revived Democratic Party
.
The party is a member of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party
.
, until recently a member of the governing post-communist Democratic Left Alliance
(SLD), and prominent Christian democrat, former UW member Tadeusz Mazowiecki
. It was since strongly supported, but thus far not yet officially joined, by then Prime Minster Marek Belka
and centrist members of the Democratic Left Alliance. Although it attracted considerable media attention and support from many Polish intellectuals, it received only 2.5% of the vote (and no seats in parliament) in the Polish parliamentary election in October 2005
.
), those proposing a more liberal economic
agenda in a more conservative
, bourgeois guise (such as Donald Tusk
), more progressive social democrats
such as Jacek Kuroń
, and intellectual former civil rights
activists such as Bronisław Geremek or Tadeusz Mazowiecki
, who also has a strong background in liberal Catholicism
and leans towards Christian democracy
.
In 2001, these frictions - combined with the prospect of a devastating defeat in the upcoming election
- led to an exodus of conservative and liberal conservative
members around Tusk who joined former members of the UW's senior coalition partner, the conservative Solidarity Electoral Action
, to form the new party Civic Platform
.
, receiving 7% of votes and 4 out of 54 seats reserved for Poland in the European Parliament
as part of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party
, of which it is a member.
party to be called "the Democrats", which he presented with Mazowiecki and Jerzy Hausner
. Mazowiecki had left the UW in November 2002 after it had left the conservative and Christian democratic European People's Party
in favour of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party
, and entered coalitions with the social-democratic Democratic Left Alliance
and the populist Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland party on the local level.
and Marek Belka
, he conceived the so-called Hausner Plan (Plan Hausnera), a programme for market-socialist reform concerning state-owned business, public administration, and social security. After his reform met with persistent opposition, he left the SLD in a much debated move on 7 February 2005 and resigned from office on 30 March 2005.
From the beginning, Frasyniuk, Hausner and Mazowiecki appealed to Prime Minister Marek Belka to join the party. Belka, another former SLD member, had left the party in the early 1990s, but joined Leszek Miller's government as a non-party minister of economic affairs in 2001 before resigning the following year. After an interlude as economic director in the interim coalition administration of Iraq
in 2003, Belka returned to Poland to become non-party head of an SLD minority government in 2004.
The involvement of Hausner and Belka as prominent post-communists marks a first in Polish politics: for the first time, a political party is created by members of the former communist government and former opposition members. Also, while the UW was a somewhat elitist party appealing mostly to educated and affluent urban voters, the PD is trying to establish itself as a populist party with a broad appeal, which caters for centrist social-liberals (Frasyniuk), pragmatic centrists with leanings toward economic liberalism (Hausner) and centrist Christian democrats (Mazowiecki).
As of 27 May 2005, the party claimed to have 13,000+ members, out of which 8,000 were members of the Freedom Union. It defined itself as, "above all, a group of young people not previously involved in politics, which at the same time is drawing on the best traditions of the liberal-democratic milieu around the Freedom Union" http://demokraci.pl/index.php?do=standard&navi=0001,0007. Despite this statement the party is made of several former politicians, who had run Poland before, as well as including ex-members of SLD who left the party when it faced a corruption crisis.
A manifesto entitled "Development through Democracy" issued by the party in February 2005 was signed by a broad range of Polish intellectuals and artists, including Paweł Huelle
(writer), Marek Edelman
(physician, last surviving leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Rising), Agnieszka Holland
(director), Marek Kondrat
(actor), Kazimierz Kutz
(director), Jan Miodek
(linguist), Daniel Olbrychski
(actor), Jerzy Pilch
(writer), Henryk Samsonowicz
(historian), Jerzy Szacki
(sociologist). Lech Wałęsa's son Jarosław Wałęsa also signed the manifesto.
(LiD) coalition which Democratic Left Alliance, Social Democracy of Poland and Labour Union
. It continued to join the coalition for the parliamentary elections 2007. It gained 3 parliamentary seats in the lower chamber of Polish Diet. The cooalition was ended in March 2008, and 3 democratic members of parliament formed their own parliamentary group.
The Democrats gathered only 25,937 votes in European elections 2009, reaching similar support as the newly-founded Polish green party Zieloni 2004. This outcome was seen as a defeat. In June 2009 two of the elected parliamentarists left the party. On 10 January, Brygida Kuźniak became a new leader of Democrats, beating former deputy leader Bogdan Lis. Currently, also the third parliamentarist switched to the Democratic Party
(Stronnictwo Demokratyczne), as well as many prominent leaders that do not share the new social-democratic shift in party's ideology.
of September 2005, it reached 2.5%, failing to overcome the election threshold
of 5%. Because the party received less than 3%, it does not receive refunds of its campaign costs. It also lacks significant presence in the media as a consequence of its poor election result, which has further diminished its appeal. In December 2005, the party merely reached 1% of support in a poll. As a result, some political observers question the party's ability to further continue in its present shape.
, which lasted from 2006 until 2008, has been seen as disloyalty of Solidarity's ideals by many.
Centrism
In politics, centrism is the ideal or the practice of promoting policies that lie different from the standard political left and political right. Most commonly, this is visualized as part of the one-dimensional political spectrum of left-right politics, with centrism landing in the middle between...
, liberal
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
political party
Political party
A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...
in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
. It has no members of the Sejm, Senate, or European Parliament
European Parliament
The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...
.
Its foundation was publicly announced on 28 February 2005 and formally established on 9 May 2005 as an 'enlargement' of the Christian democratic
Christian Democracy
Christian democracy is a political ideology that seeks to apply Christian principles to public policy. It emerged in nineteenth-century Europe under the influence of conservatism and Catholic social teaching...
Freedom Union
Freedom Union (Poland)
The Freedom Union was a liberal democratic party in Poland. It was founded on March 20, 1994 out of the merger of the Democratic Union and the Liberal Democratic Congress . Both of these parties had roots in the Solidarity trade union movement. It represented European democratic and liberal...
, which it legally succeeds. At the 2007 election
Polish parliamentary election, 2007
Early parliamentary elections for both houses of parliament were held in Poland on 21 October 2007 after the Sejm voted for its own dissolution on 7 September 2007. The election took place two years before the maximum tenure of four years, with the previous elections having been in September 2005...
to the Sejm, the party ran as part of the Left and Democrats
Left and Democrats
Left and Democrats was a centre-left political coalition in Poland which was created on September 3, 2006, before the Warsaw municipal election of 2006. The coalition's aim was to provide an alternative for both the national-conservative Law and Justice party and the liberal-conservative Civic...
(LiD) list, and won three of the alliance's 53 seats. These members left the party in 2009 to join the newly-revived Democratic Party
Democratic Party (Poland)
The Democratic Party is a Polish centrist party. The party faced a revival in 2009, when it was joined by liberal politician Paweł Piskorski, formerly member of Civic Platform.-History:The party was established on April 15, 1939...
.
The party is a member of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party
European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party
The European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party is a European political party mainly active in the European Union, composed of 56 national-level liberal and liberal-democratic parties from across Europe...
.
Foundation
The Democratic Party was formed on the initiative of Freedom Union chairman Władysław Frasyniuk, together with the social-democratic economist Jerzy HausnerJerzy Hausner
Jerzy Hausner is a Polish politician and economist. He is a Member of the 4th Sejm of the Republic of Poland....
, until recently a member of the governing post-communist Democratic Left Alliance
Democratic Left Alliance
Democratic Left Alliance is a social-democratic political party in Poland. Formed in 1991 as a coalition of centre-left parties, it was formally established as a single party on 15 April 1999. It is currently the third largest opposition party in Poland....
(SLD), and prominent Christian democrat, former UW member Tadeusz Mazowiecki
Tadeusz Mazowiecki
Tadeusz Mazowiecki is a Polish author, journalist, philanthropist and Christian-democratic politician, formerly one of the leaders of the Solidarity movement, and the first non-communist prime minister in Central and Eastern Europe after World War II.-Biography:Mazowiecki comes from a Polish...
. It was since strongly supported, but thus far not yet officially joined, by then Prime Minster Marek Belka
Marek Belka
Marek Marian Belka is a Polish professor of Economics, a former Prime Minister and Finance Minister of Poland, former Director of the International Monetary Fund's European Department and current Head of National Bank of Poland.- Biography :...
and centrist members of the Democratic Left Alliance. Although it attracted considerable media attention and support from many Polish intellectuals, it received only 2.5% of the vote (and no seats in parliament) in the Polish parliamentary election in October 2005
Polish parliamentary election, 2005
Parliamentary elections for both houses of the Parliament of Poland were held on September 25, 2005. Thirty million voters were eligible to vote for all 460 members of the lower house, the Assembly of the Republic of Poland , and all 100 members of the upper house, the Senate of the Republic of...
.
Characteristics
The core of the Democratic Party is made up by the members of the Freedom Union (Unia Wolności, UW), which had so far been the most important Christian democratic group in the Polish political landscape. Since its inception in 1994, the UW had to cope with internal frictions between various factions: liberal socialists (such as Leszek BalcerowiczLeszek Balcerowicz
Leszek Balcerowicz is a Polish economist, the former chairman of the National Bank of Poland and Deputy Prime Minister in Tadeusz Mazowiecki's government...
), those proposing a more liberal economic
Economic liberalism
Economic liberalism is the ideological belief in giving all people economic freedom, and as such granting people with more basis to control their own lives and make their own mistakes. It is an economic philosophy that supports and promotes individual liberty and choice in economic matters and...
agenda in a more conservative
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
, bourgeois guise (such as Donald Tusk
Donald Tusk
Donald Franciszek Tusk is a Polish politician who has been Prime Minister of Poland since 2007. He was a co-founder and is chairman of the Civic Platform party....
), more progressive social democrats
Social democracy
Social democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...
such as Jacek Kuroń
Jacek Kuron
Jacek Jan Kuroń was one of the democratic leaders of opposition in the People's Republic of Poland. Kuroń was a prominent Polish social and political figure; educator and historian; an activist of the Polish Scouting Association; co-founder of the Workers' Defence Committee; twice a Minister of...
, and intellectual former civil rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
activists such as Bronisław Geremek or Tadeusz Mazowiecki
Tadeusz Mazowiecki
Tadeusz Mazowiecki is a Polish author, journalist, philanthropist and Christian-democratic politician, formerly one of the leaders of the Solidarity movement, and the first non-communist prime minister in Central and Eastern Europe after World War II.-Biography:Mazowiecki comes from a Polish...
, who also has a strong background in liberal Catholicism
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
and leans towards Christian democracy
Christian Democracy
Christian democracy is a political ideology that seeks to apply Christian principles to public policy. It emerged in nineteenth-century Europe under the influence of conservatism and Catholic social teaching...
.
In 2001, these frictions - combined with the prospect of a devastating defeat in the upcoming election
Polish parliamentary election, 2001
Polish parliamentary election in 2001 to Sejm and Senate of Poland were held on the 23rd September. In Sejm elections, 46.29% of citizens cast their votes, 96.01% of those were counted as valid...
- led to an exodus of conservative and liberal conservative
Liberal conservatism
Liberal conservatism also known as progressive conservatism is a variant of political conservatism which incorporates liberal elements. As "conservatism" and "liberalism" have had different meanings over time and across countries, the term "liberal conservatism" has been used in quite different...
members around Tusk who joined former members of the UW's senior coalition partner, the conservative Solidarity Electoral Action
Solidarity Electoral Action
Solidarity Electoral Action was a political party coalition in Poland. Since 1997 its official name has been Akcja Wyborcza Solidarność Prawicy or Solidarity Electoral Action of the Right...
, to form the new party Civic Platform
Civic Platform
Civic Platform , abbreviated to PO, is a centre-right, liberal conservative political party in Poland. It has been the major coalition partner in Poland's government since the 2007 general election, with party leader Donald Tusk as Prime Minister of Poland and Bronisław Komorowski as President...
.
2001 Election failure
In the 2001 general elections, the Freedom Union received only 3.1% and thus failed to cross the 5% threshold required to gain entry to Parliament. With Władysław Frasyniuk replacing Geremek as chairman, the Freedom Union continued to exist as a centrist party, but lost much of its relevance in Polish politics. It was enjoying the support of approximately 3% of voters, to fall to 1% and below in 2009.European election success
However, probably due to low voter turnout, the party managed to cross the required 5% threshold in the 2004 European Parliament electionsEuropean Parliament election, 2004
Elections to the European Parliament were held from 10 June 2004 to 13 June 2004 in the 25 member states of the European Union, using varying election days according to local custom...
, receiving 7% of votes and 4 out of 54 seats reserved for Poland in the European Parliament
European Parliament
The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...
as part of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party
European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party
The European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party is a European political party mainly active in the European Union, composed of 56 national-level liberal and liberal-democratic parties from across Europe...
, of which it is a member.
After 2005
On 29 February 2005, Frasyniuk came out with the initiative to merge the UW into a new social-liberalSocial liberalism
Social liberalism is the belief that liberalism should include social justice. It differs from classical liberalism in that it believes the legitimate role of the state includes addressing economic and social issues such as unemployment, health care, and education while simultaneously expanding...
party to be called "the Democrats", which he presented with Mazowiecki and Jerzy Hausner
Jerzy Hausner
Jerzy Hausner is a Polish politician and economist. He is a Member of the 4th Sejm of the Republic of Poland....
. Mazowiecki had left the UW in November 2002 after it had left the conservative and Christian democratic European People's Party
European People's Party
The European People's Party is a pro-European centre-right European political party. The EPP was founded in 1976 by Christian democratic parties, but later it increased its membership to include conservative parties and parties of other centre-right perspectives.The EPP is the most influential of...
in favour of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party
European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party
The European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party is a European political party mainly active in the European Union, composed of 56 national-level liberal and liberal-democratic parties from across Europe...
, and entered coalitions with the social-democratic Democratic Left Alliance
Democratic Left Alliance
Democratic Left Alliance is a social-democratic political party in Poland. Formed in 1991 as a coalition of centre-left parties, it was formally established as a single party on 15 April 1999. It is currently the third largest opposition party in Poland....
and the populist Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland party on the local level.
Aliance with postcommunists
Hausner, on the other hand, is an economist with a post-communist background. As minister of economic affairs and employment in the governments of Leszek MillerLeszek Miller
Leszek Cezary Miller is a Polish central-left-wing politician, leader of the Democratic Left Alliance , Prime Minister of the government of the Republic of Poland in 2001-2004.-Childhood and youth:...
and Marek Belka
Marek Belka
Marek Marian Belka is a Polish professor of Economics, a former Prime Minister and Finance Minister of Poland, former Director of the International Monetary Fund's European Department and current Head of National Bank of Poland.- Biography :...
, he conceived the so-called Hausner Plan (Plan Hausnera), a programme for market-socialist reform concerning state-owned business, public administration, and social security. After his reform met with persistent opposition, he left the SLD in a much debated move on 7 February 2005 and resigned from office on 30 March 2005.
From the beginning, Frasyniuk, Hausner and Mazowiecki appealed to Prime Minister Marek Belka to join the party. Belka, another former SLD member, had left the party in the early 1990s, but joined Leszek Miller's government as a non-party minister of economic affairs in 2001 before resigning the following year. After an interlude as economic director in the interim coalition administration of Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
in 2003, Belka returned to Poland to become non-party head of an SLD minority government in 2004.
The involvement of Hausner and Belka as prominent post-communists marks a first in Polish politics: for the first time, a political party is created by members of the former communist government and former opposition members. Also, while the UW was a somewhat elitist party appealing mostly to educated and affluent urban voters, the PD is trying to establish itself as a populist party with a broad appeal, which caters for centrist social-liberals (Frasyniuk), pragmatic centrists with leanings toward economic liberalism (Hausner) and centrist Christian democrats (Mazowiecki).
As of 27 May 2005, the party claimed to have 13,000+ members, out of which 8,000 were members of the Freedom Union. It defined itself as, "above all, a group of young people not previously involved in politics, which at the same time is drawing on the best traditions of the liberal-democratic milieu around the Freedom Union" http://demokraci.pl/index.php?do=standard&navi=0001,0007. Despite this statement the party is made of several former politicians, who had run Poland before, as well as including ex-members of SLD who left the party when it faced a corruption crisis.
A manifesto entitled "Development through Democracy" issued by the party in February 2005 was signed by a broad range of Polish intellectuals and artists, including Paweł Huelle
Pawel Huelle
Paweł Huelle is a Polish prose writer.Huelle studied philology at Gdańsk University, and later became a journalist. He worked for a time for the press service of Solidarność . He has also taught literature, philosophy, and history...
(writer), Marek Edelman
Marek Edelman
Marek Edelman was a Jewish-Polish political and social activist and cardiologist.Before World War II, he was a General Jewish Labour Bund activist. During the war he co-founded the Jewish Combat Organization. He took part in the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, becoming its leader after the death of...
(physician, last surviving leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Rising), Agnieszka Holland
Agnieszka Holland
Agnieszka Holland is a Polish film and TV director and screenwriter. Best recognized for her highly political contributions to Polish cinema, Holland is one of Poland's most prominent filmmakers.-Personal life:...
(director), Marek Kondrat
Marek Kondrat
Marek Kondrat – Polish TV, film and theatrical actor, director.In 2007 he planned to revolutionize the Polish domestic wine market by introducing Winarium wine stores in every city with a population of over 100,000.- Awards :...
(actor), Kazimierz Kutz
Kazimierz Kutz
Kazimierz Julian Kutz is a Polish film director, author, journalist and politician, one of the representatives of the Polish Film School and a deputy speaker of the Senate of Poland.- Biography :...
(director), Jan Miodek
Jan Miodek
Jan Miodek , Professor of Wroclaw University, is a Polish linguist in the normative tradition....
(linguist), Daniel Olbrychski
Daniel Olbrychski
Daniel Olbrychski is a Polish actor best known for leading roles in several Andrzej Wajda movies and also known for playing the Russian defector and spymaster Vassily Orlov, alongside Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie in the movie Salt....
(actor), Jerzy Pilch
Jerzy Pilch
Jerzy Pilch is one of the most important contemporary Polish writers and journalists. Critics have compared Pilch's style to Witold Gombrowicz, Milan Kundera, or Bohumil Hrabal....
(writer), Henryk Samsonowicz
Henryk Samsonowicz
Henryk Bohdan Samsonowicz is a Polish historian specializing in medieval Poland, prolific writer, and professor of the University of Warsaw...
(historian), Jerzy Szacki
Jerzy Szacki
Jerzy Ryszard Szacki is a Polish sociologist and historian of ideas, and emeritus professor of the University of Warsaw....
(sociologist). Lech Wałęsa's son Jarosław Wałęsa also signed the manifesto.
After 2006
In 2006 the party created the Left and DemocratsLeft and Democrats
Left and Democrats was a centre-left political coalition in Poland which was created on September 3, 2006, before the Warsaw municipal election of 2006. The coalition's aim was to provide an alternative for both the national-conservative Law and Justice party and the liberal-conservative Civic...
(LiD) coalition which Democratic Left Alliance, Social Democracy of Poland and Labour Union
Labour Union (Poland)
The Labour Union is a social-democratic political party in Poland. It is a member of the Party of European Socialists and Socialist International....
. It continued to join the coalition for the parliamentary elections 2007. It gained 3 parliamentary seats in the lower chamber of Polish Diet. The cooalition was ended in March 2008, and 3 democratic members of parliament formed their own parliamentary group.
The Democrats gathered only 25,937 votes in European elections 2009, reaching similar support as the newly-founded Polish green party Zieloni 2004. This outcome was seen as a defeat. In June 2009 two of the elected parliamentarists left the party. On 10 January, Brygida Kuźniak became a new leader of Democrats, beating former deputy leader Bogdan Lis. Currently, also the third parliamentarist switched to the Democratic Party
Democratic Party (Poland)
The Democratic Party is a Polish centrist party. The party faced a revival in 2009, when it was joined by liberal politician Paweł Piskorski, formerly member of Civic Platform.-History:The party was established on April 15, 1939...
(Stronnictwo Demokratyczne), as well as many prominent leaders that do not share the new social-democratic shift in party's ideology.
Ideology
Key proposals of the party include:- Support for the European constitution in the referendum in October 2005Polish referendum on the European ConstitutionThe Polish referendum on the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe was a referendum expected to be held on in October 2005 to decide whether Poland should ratify the proposed Constitution of the European Union...
- Tax cuts, introduction of an 18% flat taxFlat taxA flat tax is a tax system with a constant marginal tax rate. Typically the term flat tax is applied in the context of an individual or corporate income that will be taxed at one marginal rate...
on incomes - Reduction of non-wage labour costs, tax remissions for business starters
- Creation of new jobs, e.g. through a first-year exemption from social security contributions for graduate entrants
- Appointment of an ombudsman to represent entrepreneurs damnified by fiscal or other authorities
- Increased spending on education
- Studentship funds for rural youth
- Compulsory education starting at age 6 (presently 7), popularisation of instruction in two foreign languages at primary school level
- Improvement and nationwide standardisation of health services
- Establishment of a public hospital network not subject to privatisation
- Reduction in telecommunication costs to facilitate Internet access
Popular Support
The Freedom Union's transformation into the Democratic Party has not significantly increased voter support for the centrists, which since autumn 2004 has been oscillating between 3% and 6%. In June 2005 it was at 4% and has since deteriorated; in the parliamentary electionsPolish parliamentary election, 2005
Parliamentary elections for both houses of the Parliament of Poland were held on September 25, 2005. Thirty million voters were eligible to vote for all 460 members of the lower house, the Assembly of the Republic of Poland , and all 100 members of the upper house, the Senate of the Republic of...
of September 2005, it reached 2.5%, failing to overcome the election threshold
Election threshold
In party-list proportional representation systems, an election threshold is a clause that stipulates that a party must receive a minimum percentage of votes, either nationally or within a particular district, to obtain any seats in the parliament...
of 5%. Because the party received less than 3%, it does not receive refunds of its campaign costs. It also lacks significant presence in the media as a consequence of its poor election result, which has further diminished its appeal. In December 2005, the party merely reached 1% of support in a poll. As a result, some political observers question the party's ability to further continue in its present shape.
Criticism
The Democratic Party has attracted criticism from other former oppositionists from communist times, who criticise that the party accepts former members of the post-communist SLD, and strongly opposes the large-scale vetting of officials and politicians (see Bronisław Wildstein) aimed at eliminating former state agents from political life. Also, the party's formal electoral and later parliamentary coalition with SLD, Left and DemocratsLeft and Democrats
Left and Democrats was a centre-left political coalition in Poland which was created on September 3, 2006, before the Warsaw municipal election of 2006. The coalition's aim was to provide an alternative for both the national-conservative Law and Justice party and the liberal-conservative Civic...
, which lasted from 2006 until 2008, has been seen as disloyalty of Solidarity's ideals by many.
See also
- Liberalism in PolandLiberalism in PolandThis article gives an overview of liberalism in Poland. It is limited to liberal parties with substantial support, mainly proved by having had a representation in parliament. The sign ⇒ denotes another party in that scheme...
- LiberalismLiberalismLiberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
- Contributions to liberal theoryContributions to liberal theoryIndividual contributors to classical liberalism and political liberalism are associated with philosophers of the Enlightenment. Liberalism as a specifically named ideology begins in the late 18th century as a movement towards self-government and away from aristocracy...
- Liberalism worldwideLiberalism worldwideThis article gives information on liberalism in diverse countries around the world. It is an overview of parties that adhere more or less to the ideas of political liberalism and is therefore a list of liberal parties around the world....
- List of liberal parties
- Liberal democracyLiberal democracyLiberal democracy, also known as constitutional democracy, is a common form of representative democracy. According to the principles of liberal democracy, elections should be free and fair, and the political process should be competitive...