1989 Polish parliamentary election

1989 Polish parliamentary election

4 June 1989 (first round)
18 June 1989 (second round)
RegisteredFirst round: 27,362,313
Second round: 27,026,146 (Sejm), 3,104,127 (Senate)
Sejm

All 460 seats in the Sejm
161 seats up for free election
231 seats needed for a majority
TurnoutFirst round: 17,156,170 (62.70%)
Second round: 6,843,872 (25.32%)
Party Leader 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 Jerzy Jóźwiak 27
PAX Association Zenon Komender 10
Christian-Social Union Kazimierz Morawski 8
Polish Catholic Social Association Wiesław Gwiżdż 5
Freely-contested seats (161)
Solidarity Citizens' Committee Lech Wałęsa 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
TurnoutFirst round: 17,156,170 (62.70%)
Second round: 1,320,816 (42.55%)
Party Seats
Solidarity Citizens' Committee 99
Patriotic Movement for National Rebirth 1
This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below.
Government before Government after election
Rakowski cabinet
PZPRZSLSD
(Communist regime)
Mazowiecki cabinet
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. Most crucially, the election served as evidence of widespread dissatisfaction with the government. In the aftermath of the election, Poland became the first country of the Eastern Bloc in which democratically elected representatives gained real power. Although the elections were not entirely democratic, they led to the formation of a non-communist government led by Tadeusz Mazowiecki and a peaceful transition to democracy in Poland and elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe.