Talk:1991 Polish parliamentary election

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1991 Polish parliamentary election ← 1989 27 October 1991 (1991-10-27) 1993 → All 460 seats in the Sejm 231 seats were needed for a majority in the Sejm All 100 seats in the Senate Turnout 43.2%   First party Second party Third party   Leader Tadeusz Mazowiecki Aleksander Kwaśniewski Wiesław Chrzanowski Party UD SLD WAK Leader since May 1991 30 January 1990 28 October 1989 Leader's seat Poznań Warsaw Lublin Last election Did not exist 173 seats, 37.6% Did not exist Seats before 49[1] 102[1] Seats won 62 60 49 Seat change 13 42 New Popular vote 1,382,051 1,344,820 980,304 Percentage 12.3% 12.0% 8.7% Swing New 25.6% New   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Jarosław Kaczyński Waldemar Pawlak Leszek Moczulski Party POC PSL KPN Leader since 12 May 1990 29 June 1991 1 September 1979 Leader's seat Warsaw Płock Kraków Last election Did not exist 76 seats, 16.5% none Seats won 44 48 46 Seat change New 28 46 Popular vote 977,344 972,952 841,738 Percentage 8.7% 8.7% 7.5% Swing New 7.8% 7.5%   Seventh party Eighth party Ninth party   Leader Donald Tusk Józef Ślisz Marian Krzaklewski Party KLD PSL-PL NSZZ „S” Leader since 19 May 1991 1991 23 February 1991 Leader's seat Gdańsk Did not stand Did not stand Last election none none none Seats won 37 28 28 Seat change New New New Popular vote 839,978 613,626 566,553 Percentage 7.5% 5.5% 5.1% Swing New New New Seats won by electoral district Government before election Bielecki cabinet [pl] KLD–UD—PC–ZChN—SD Government after election Olszewski cabinet PC–ZChN—PSL-PL—SLCh

1991 Polish parliamentary election ← 1989 27 October 1991 (1991-10-27) 1993 → Turnout 43.20% Sejm All 460 seats in the Sejm 231 seats needed for a majority Party Leader % Seats UD Tadeusz Mazowiecki 12.32 62 SLD Aleksander Kwaśniewski 11.99 60 WAK Wiesław Chrzanowski 8.74 49 POC Jarosław Kaczyński 8.71 44 PSL Waldemar Pawlak 8.67 48 KPN Leszek Moczulski 7.50 46 KLD Donald Tusk 7.49 37 PSL-PL Józef Ślisz [pl] 5.47 28 KO "S" Marian Krzaklewski 5.05 27 PPPP Janusz Rewiński 3.27 16 ChD N/A 2.36 5 UPR Janusz Korwin-Mikke 2.26 3 SP R. Bugaj & K. Modzelewski 2.06 4 SD Aleksander Mackiewicz 1.42 1 KWMN Henryk Kroll 1.18 7 PChD Krzysztof Pawłowski [pl] 1.12 4 X Stanisław Tymiński 0.47 3 RDS Zbigniew Bujak 0.46 1 LPW "Piast"[a] N/A 0.37 1 RAŚ Paweł Musioł [pl] 0.36 2 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 % Seats UD 16.42 21 SLD 10.61 4 KO "S" 9.68 11 POC 9.04 9 WAK 8.71 9 PSL 7.38 7 KLD 6.53 6 KPN 4.67 4 PSL-PL 3.14 5 PChD 2.22 3 Independents 16.18 21 This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below. Sejm results by electoral district Government before Government after election Bielecki cabinet [pl] KLD–UD—PC–ZChN—SD Olszewski cabinet PC–ZChN—PSL-PL—SLCh [pl]

Considering the amount of parties which actually had gained seats (due to the lack of a threshold), this election is probably the one that could most use TILE as opposed to TIE. To justify it beyond just having a lot of parties winning seats, this is also the only fully democratic election which had no threshold in post-communist Polish history. The TILE infobox was already made but reverted, I propose returning to the TILE infobox. @Impru20 @Czello @Number 57 Polish kurd (talk) 20:13, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It seems a no brainer to me, As demonstrated to the left, the full results of the election (both Sejm and Senate) can be displayed in a smaller space using TILE than the Sejm results for only nine parties using TIE. For this particular election, ten parties won double digit number of seats in the Sejm and there is no clear cut off. However, as Poland elects the Sejm and Senate at the same time, this is the best way of presenting the election results of both houses in a compact fashion and should be applied to all post-communist elections IMO. Number 57 21:02, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I see the large fragmentation as the only issue here. TIE can accommodate both Sejm and Senate results, and correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the Sejm the chamber that has more power than the Senate? Tyypically, in cases of imperfect bicameralism, only the results of the more powerful house are shown in the infobox (but this depends on each case).

Paradoxically, the number of relevant parties in this election is nine: from ten onwards they are too small. This is a somewhat extreme case but it's an exception, not the rule, for elections in Poland, and TIE can still accommodate this (and obviously the other post-Communism elections). I am more worried that the article's space is currently 80% occuppied by results tables (and the remainder is the infobox and the lead section). This should be expanded in content (which can be done, as the Polish wiki article shows). Maybe that should be given more effort? We spend years discussing about how much space does the infobox occupy and very little in actually improving almost empty articles.

Btw, I don't like this practice that examples are put on the very same talk page where discussion is taking place. We seemingly want to display infoboxes in a smaller space but we end up cluttering talk pages with examples... Impru20^talk 21:31, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am a proponent of using TIE in all elections after this one, since they did implement a threshold.

In this case, many of the parties DO matter, some participated in coalition governments (for example PPPP), and I believe UPR began lustration proceedings.

I'm only a proponent of using TILE if there is no threshold. If the threshold is ever abolished again, I believe TILE could be used in those future elections, though I suppose the matter would be discussed again in that case.

As for expanding content, I am trying my best to improve that, as I did with the 1990 Polish presidential election, but the matter of infoboxes is still important. I'm trying to edit interwar era infoboxes up to standard: 1922, 1928.

Not sure how adding the Senate from the infobox is harmful, sometimes it's actually very important, like 2019, where PiS lost its majority in the Senate. Polish kurd (talk) 23:41, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't agree that we should use TIE or TILE depending on whether there is a threshold (in many countries there is no national threshold and Poland 1991-like results are rare; even in Poland itself this is quite rare). But I accept your reasoning.

Government participation is not necessarily a requisite for being in the infobox. It can help, but it ultimately comes to parliamentary representation (and parties getting 1 seat are not at the same level of prominence than parties scoring first, second or third).

On article content, this was a general complain, not specifically aimed at you. For many years there has been lots of discussions on election articles' infoboxes and comparatively less on actual content, which infoboxes are meant to summarize (to the point that some articles with almost no content other than results tables become hotbeds of edit warring over the infobox style, which is absurd).

What's the actual power of the Senate? According to its article: Poland's parliament is asymmetric, where the lower chamber is dominant over the upper chamber. Unlike the Sejm, the Senate cannot unilaterally veto legislation nor can it bring down the government in a vote of no confidence, and the chamber and its members generally receive far less attention compared to the Sejm. If this is the case, then it is not that important (compared to the Sejm). It is not particularly harmful and can be accomodated into TIE if ultimately needed, but the role of each chamber and the focus that local (and English) media give to each is relevant. Typically, customary practice across Wikipedia has been to show results for both chambers when the chambers' powers are more symmetric. Impru20^talk 23:55, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would say the reason why 1991-like results are rare is single-handedly because of the threshold - without the threshold, the number of historically relevant parties in the 1993 Polish parliamentary election would have doubled, from 7 to 14. Otherwise this can kind of fragmentation can occur, and still occurs at local elections like the 2024 Polish local elections (specifically when it comes to gmina councils).

As for the Senate, it is true that Polish bicameralism is quite asymmetric and vests way more power in the Sejm than the Senate. There are papers that argue that it plays an important role though - Participation of the Polish Senate in the Legislative Process: Towards Equal Bicameralism? by Sławomir Patyra (DOI: 10.17951/sil.2022.31.5.187-199) writes:

In the circumstances of a kind of “Sejm dictatorship” of the coalition having the majority since the 2015 parliamentary elections, manifesting itself, among other things, in a gross restriction of the opposition’s participation in the parliamentary decision-making process, the Senate once again seems to be a “Chamber of democratic resistance” to the undemocratic standards pursued in the Sejm. This is a kind of phenomenon, given that, following the free and democratic elections to the Sejm in 1991, it seemed that this function would become history. In view of the progressing erosion of democratic principles of lawmaking at the level of the Sejm legislative process and the disappearance of institutional review of constitutionality of the law, due to the subordination of the Constitutional Tribunal to political power, the Senate today plays the role of both a guardian of the Constitution and a protector of the quality of lawmaking in line with the standards of a democratic state ruled by law.

I would say the Senate should be included since it can play an important role in the Polish legislation, as it did during the Polish constitutional crisis.

Lastly, when it comes to TILE vs. TIE, I very much think that TILE should indeed be applied to this election, as per @Polish kurd's recommendation. Brat Forelli🦊 01:58, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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