2005 Polish parliamentary election

← 2001 25 September 2005 2007 →
All 460 seats in the Sejm 231 seats were needed for a majority in the Sejm All 100 seats in the Senate
Turnout	40.57%
First party Second party Third party   Leader Jarosław Kaczyński Donald Tusk Andrzej Lepper Party PiS PO SRP Leader since 18 January 2003 1 June 2003 10 January 1992 Leader's seat 19 – Warsaw I 25 – Gdansk 40 – Koszalin Last election 44 seats, 9.5% 65 seats, 12.7% 53 seats, 10.2% Seats won 155 133 56 Seat change 111 68 3 Popular vote 3,185,714 2,849,269 1,347,355 Percentage 27.0% 24.1% 11.4% Swing 17.5% 11.4% 1.2%   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Wojciech Olejniczak Marek Kotlinowski Waldemar Pawlak Party SLD LPR PSL Leader since 29 May 2005 5 May 2001 29 January 2005 Leader's seat 11 – Sieradz 13 – Kraków II 16 – Płock Last election 216 seats, 41% 38 seats, 7.9% 42 seats, 9% Seats won 55 34 25 Seat change 161 4 17 Popular vote 1,335,257 940,762 821,656 Percentage 11.3% 8.0% 7.0% Swing 29.7% 0.1% 2%
Seats won by Sejm District
Government before election Belka cabinet SLD—UP Government after election Marcinkiewicz cabinet PiS—SRP—LPR

Politics of Poland
Government Constitution of Poland Law Human rights
Legislature Parliament of Poland Current Parliament Sejm Marshal Szymon Hołownia (PL2050) Deputy Marshals Senate Marshal Małgorzata Maria Kidawa- Błońska (PO) Deputy Marshals
Executive President of Poland Andrzej Duda (I) Prime Minister of Poland Donald Tusk (PO) Cabinet Ministries
Judiciary Supreme Court of Poland First President Małgorzata Manowska Constitutional Tribunal President Julia Przyłębska Supreme Administrative Court State Tribunal
Elections Presidential Parliamentary Local Referendums
Political parties Major parties Law and Justice Civic Platform Other parties
Administrative divisions Voivodeship voivodes marshals Counties (powiat) Communes (gmina) Cities and towns
Foreign relations Ministry of Foreign Affairs Minister: Zbigniew Rau Diplomatic missions of / in Poland Ambassadors
Related topics Economy History (political) Armed forces
Poland portal Other countries
v t e

Parliamentary elections were held in Poland on 25 September 2005.^[1] Thirty million voters were eligible to vote for all 460 members of the lower house, the Sejm and all 100 members of the upper house, the Senate.

The election resulted in a sweeping victory for two opposition parties: the right-wing, national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) and the centre-right, liberal-conservative Civic Platform (PO). The incumbent centre-left government of the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) was soundly defeated. PiS won 155 seats and PO 133, while the governing SLD was reduced to fourth place with 55 seats, behind Andrzej Lepper's Self-Defence party, which won 56 seats.

Normally, this would have made PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński Prime Minister. However, he declined the post so as not to prejudice his twin brother Lech's chances for the presidential election held later in October. In his place, Law and Justice nominated Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz for the post. Outgoing Prime Minister Marek Belka failed to win a seat in Łódź.

In the Senate, PiS won 49 seats and PO 34 of the 100 seats, leaving eight other parties with the remaining 17 seats. The SLD won no seats in the Senate.

In the subsequent presidential elections, Lech Kaczyński of the PiS defeated PO leader Donald Tusk.

Background

The 2005 Sejm was elected by proportional representation from multi-member constituencies, with seats divided among parties which gain more than five percent of the votes using the d'Hondt method. On the other hand, the Senate was elected under first-past-the-post bloc voting. This tended to cause the party or coalition which wins the elections to have a larger majority in the Senate than in the Sejm.

In the 2001 elections the SLD and UP won 216 of the 460 seats, and were able to form a government with the support of the Polish People's Party (PSL). The former ruling party, Solidarity Electoral Action (AWS) based on the Solidarity trade union, lost all its seats. In its place several new right-wing parties emerged, such as the PO and the PiS.

After 2003 a variety of factors combined to bring about a collapse of support for the government. Discontent with high unemployment, government spending cuts (especially on health, education and welfare), affairs related to privatizations was compounded by a series of corruption scandals, the most serious of them being Rywin-gate. Prime Minister Leszek Miller resigned in May 2004 and was succeeded by Marek Belka. All opinion polls suggested that the governing SLD-UP coalition would be heavily defeated at these elections and that the right-wing parties would win a large majority. With the expected downfall of the post-communists, the right-wing parties competed mainly against each other.

Contestants

The parties running in this election were mainly the same as in 2001, with the addition of Social Democracy of Poland (a splinter group from the Democratic Left Alliance), and the Democratic Party formed from the Freedom Union (UW) and some SLD dissidents. Both these new parties failed to win seats.

The BBC commented on election day: "The two centre-right parties are both rooted in the anti-communist Solidarity movement but differ on issues such as the budget and taxation. Law and Justice, whose agenda includes tax breaks and state aid for the poor, has pledged to uphold traditional family and Christian values. It is suspicious of economic liberalism. The Citizens Platform strongly promotes free market forces and wants to introduce a flat 15% rate for income tax, corporation tax and VAT. It also promises to move faster on deregulation and privatisation, in order to adopt the euro as soon as possible."

Opinion polls

Results

Had the two leading parties been able to form a coalition as expected, it would have had 63 percent of seats in the Assembly, just short of the two-thirds supermajority required to carry out constitutional reform. Instead however, PiS formed a coalition with three other parties, SRP, PSL and LPR. The populist and isolationist Self-Defense of the Polish Republic (Samoobrona) slightly improved its representation and became the third largest party ahead of the SLD, which despite losing most of its seats performed slightly better than expected based on opinion polls. However, the party lost all its Senate seats. The League of Polish Families and the Polish People's Party retained their representation. The German minority in Poland is exempt from the requirement of achieving at least 5% of the total vote and retained their two seats.

Sejm

Party		Votes	%	Seats	+/–
	Law and Justice	3,185,714	26.99	155	+111
	Civic Platform	2,849,259	24.14	133	+68
	Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland	1,347,355	11.41	56	+3
	Democratic Left Alliance	1,335,257	11.31	55	–161
	League of Polish Families	940,762	7.97	34	–4
	Polish People's Party	821,656	6.96	25	–17
	Social Democracy of Poland	459,380	3.89	0	New
	Democratic Party	289,276	2.45	0	New
	Janusz Korwin-Mikke Platform	185,885	1.57	0	New
	Patriotic Movement	124,038	1.05	0	New
	Polish Labour Party	91,266	0.77	0	New
	German Minority Electoral Committee	34,469	0.29	2	0
	Polish National Party	34,127	0.29	0	New
	Ancestral Home	32,863	0.28	0	New
	Centre	21,893	0.19	0	New
	All-Poland Civic Coalition	16,251	0.14	0	New
	Party Initiative of the Republic of Poland	11,914	0.10	0	New
	Polish Confederation – Dignity and Work	8,353	0.07	0	New
	National Revival of Poland	7,376	0.06	0	New
	German Minority of Silesia	5,581	0.05	0	0
	Labour Party	1,019	0.01	0	New
	Social Rescuers	982	0.01	0	New
Total		11,804,676	100.00	460	0
Valid votes		11,804,676	96.40
Invalid/blank votes		440,227	3.60
Total votes		12,244,903	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		30,229,031	40.51
Source: Nohlen & Stöver

By constituency

Although PiS and PO were the clear winners, their vote was very unevenly distributed, being overwhelmingly concentrated in the cities, particularly Warsaw and the southern industrial areas around Kraków and Katowice, but also including Gdańsk, Gdynia, Poznań, Wrocław and Szczecin. The only urban centre not to endorse the right was Łódź. The two main parties failed to win a majority in any rural district except Rzeszów in the south. In seven rural districts they polled less the 40 percent of the vote, while in one (Chełm) they polled less than 35 percent. Self-Defence managed to win in four districts. The vote shows the continuing sharp divide in Polish politics between urban voters, who are generally more socially liberal and in favour of free-market economics, and rural voters, who are more socially conservative and economically left-wing.

Seat distribution by constituency

Senate

Party		Votes	%	Seats	+/–
	Law and Justice	5,020,704	20.80	49	+49
	Civic Platform	4,090,497	16.94	34	+32
	Democratic Left Alliance	3,114,118	12.90	0	–75
	League of Polish Families	2,990,092	12.39	7	+5
	Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland	2,016,858	8.35	3	+1
	Polish People's Party	1,413,872	5.86	2	–2
	Democratic Party	683,799	2.83	0	New
	Social Democracy of Poland	573,556	2.38	0	New
	Janusz Korwin-Mikke Platform	375,037	1.55	0	New
	Centre	246,143	1.02	0	New
	Patriotic Movement	234,093	0.97	0	New
	Ancestral Home	181,337	0.75	0	New
	Polish National Party	168,413	0.70	0	New
	German Minority Electoral Committee	88,875	0.37	0	–
	All-Poland Civic Coalition	65,561	0.27	0	New
	Party Initiative of the Republic of Poland	45,712	0.19	0	New
	Social Rescuers	18,439	0.08	0	New
	Polish Labour Party	11,765	0.05	0	–
	Polish Confederation – Dignity and Work	10,528	0.04	0	New
	Local lists and independents	2,792,572	11.57	5	+3
Total		24,141,971	100.00	100	0
Valid votes		11,812,965	96.52
Invalid/blank votes		426,054	3.48
Total votes		12,239,019	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		30,229,031	40.49
Source: Nohlen & Stöver

By constituency

Aftermath

Negotiations between PiS and PO about forming a government collapsed in late October, precipitated by disagreement regarding who would be speaker of the Sejm. On 1 November PiS announced a minority government headed by Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz as Prime Minister. The negotiations were affected by the 9 October presidential election where the PiS candidate Lech Kaczyński (the twin brother of PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński) was elected; Jarosław Kaczyński had promised that he would not become the Prime Minister if his brother wins the election. The constitutional requirement to form a government within a set time period also heated up the coalition negotiations.

A major stumbling block in PiS-PO government negotiations was the latter's insistence on receiving the Interior portfolio, as to prevent one party from controlling all three of the "power" ministries (Security, Justice and Interior) that manage police and security services. The PO also opposed a "tactical alliance" between the PiS and the Self-Defense (Samoobrona) party, which shared eurosceptic and populist sentiments, although differing on economic policy. The election campaign, in which PiS and PO mainly competed against each other rather than parties to their left, accentuated differences and created an antagonistic relationship between the two parties.

The PiS minority government depended on the support of the radical Samoobrona party and the hard-right League of Polish Families (LPR) to govern, a situation that made many of those hoping for a PiS-PO coalition uneasy. On 5 May 2006 PiS formed a coalition government with Samoobrona and LPR.

In July 2006, Marcinkiewicz tendered his resignation following reports of a rift with PiS party leader Kaczyński. Kaczyński formed a new government and was sworn in on 14 July as prime minister.

The SLD's severe defeat sent the party into a sharp decline from which it has never fully recovered; it lost all of its remaining seats in 2015 though it regained some ground in 2019 as part of Lewica, and the Polish left-wing would not govern until New Left, formed from the merger of the SLD and Spring, entered Tusk's third cabinet as a junior coalition partner following the 2023 parliamentary election.

The 2005 election proved to be a realigning election in Polish politics, as Law and Justice and Civic Platform (and presidential candidates supported by them) have finished in top two of every election since.