Indirect presidential elections were held inPoland on 19 July 1989. The elections were the first after the office ofPresident of the Republic of Poland had been re-established after a period ofCommunist rule and were the last in which the President was elected by Parliament (joint houses of theSejm andSenate). Despite adoption of the democratic system there was only one candidate.
After theRound Table Agreement, which resulted in a semi-freeparliamentary election, marked by effectiveSolidarity victory andde facto loss of thePolish United Workers' Party, on July 4, 1989,Adam Michnik proposed a power-sharing deal between communist and the democratic opposition (Your President, ourPrime Minister), according to which Chairman of the Council of State and Communist leaderWojciech Jaruzelski would become president and a Solidarity representative would become Prime Minister (this position indeed went toTadeusz Mazowiecki in August, albeit after an attempt by Jaruzelski to impose fellow PZPR memberCzesław Kiszczak as Prime Minister). After much debate within both camps this conception won.
Jaruzelski ran unopposed, but won by just a one-vote majority needed, as many Solidarity MPs, while supporting the agreement, felt just unable to cast their votes or, to not disturb the process, cast abstain or invalid votes.
The President was elected by theNational Assembly, a joint sitting of theSejm and theSenate, by open ballot. The members of the Assembly were elected in the1989 Polish parliamentary election; although 460 deputies and 100 senators (making 560 electors) had been elected, senatorGrzegorz Białkowski [pl;de] died before the presidential election and his replacement was yet to be chosen.
The composition of the National Assembly was as follows:
