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Democratic Left Alliance Sojusz Lewicy Demokratycznej | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Leader | Włodzimierz Czarzasty |
| Founder | Aleksander Kwaśniewski |
| Founded | 9 July 1991; 34 years ago (1991-07-09) (as a coalition) 15 April 1999; 26 years ago (1999-04-15) (as a party) |
| Dissolved | 9 October 2021; 4 years ago (2021-10-09) |
| Merger of | SdRP, minor parties (1991) |
| Merged into | New Left |
| Headquarters | ul. Złota 9Warsaw |
| Youth wing | Social Democratic Youth Federation |
| Membership(2018) | 33,554[1] |
| Ideology | Social democracy Pro-Europeanism[2] Atlanticism[3][4][5] |
| Political position | Centre-left[6] |
| National affiliation | The Left[A] |
| European affiliation | Party of European Socialists |
| European Parliament group | Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats |
| International affiliation | Progressive Alliance |
| Colours | Red |
| Website | |
| lewica | |
^ A: PreviouslySLD-UP (2001–14),Left and Democrats (2006–08),United Left (2015) and theEuropean Coalition (2019). | |
TheDemocratic Left Alliance (Polish:Sojusz Lewicy Demokratycznej) was asocial-democratic[7][8][9]political party in Poland. It was formed on 9 July 1991 as anelectoral alliance ofcentre-left parties, and became a single party on 15 April 1999. It was the major coalition party in Poland between 1993 and 1997, and between 2001 and 2005, with four Prime ministers coming from the party:Józef Oleksy,Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz,Leszek Miller andMarek Belka. It then faded into opposition, overshadowed by the rise ofCivic Platform andLaw and Justice.
In February 2020, the party initiated a process to merge with theSpring party, choosing the nameNew Left (Polish:Nowa Lewica), and changing to a more modern logo.
The party was a member of theParty of European Socialists andProgressive Alliance.
The party can be classified as centre-left. However, during the 1990s, it managed to attract voters from the pro-market and even right-wing camp.[10] The main support for SLD came from middle-rank state sector employees, retired people, former communistPolish United Workers Party (PZPR) andAll-Poland Alliance of Trade Unions (OPZZ)[11] members and those who were unlikely to be frequent church-goers.[12] The core of the coalition (Social Democracy of the Republic of Poland) rejected concepts such aslustration and de-communization, supported a parliamentarian regime with only the role of an arbiter for the president and criticized the right-wing camp for the introduction of religious education into school.[13] The ex-communists criticized the economic reforms, pointing to the high social costs, without negating the reforms per se.
SdRP, SDU and some othersocialist and social-democratic parties had formed the original Democratic Left Alliance as a centre-left coalition just prior to the nation's first free elections in 1991. In 1999 the coalition became a party but lost some members.
At the time, the coalition's membership drew mostly from the former PZPR. An alliance between the SLD and thePolish People's Party (PSL) ruled Poland in the years 1993–1997. However, the coalition lost power to theright-wingSolidarity Electoral Action in the1997 election as the right-wing opposition was united this time and because of the decline of support for SLD's coalition partner PSL, though the SLD itself actually gained votes.
SLD formed a coalition withLabour Union before the2001 Polish election and won it overwhelmingly at last by capturing about 5.3 million votes, 42% of the whole and won 200 of 460 seats in theSejm and 75 of 100 in theSenate. After the elections, the coalition was joined by the Polish People's Party (PSL) in forming a government andLeszek Miller became the Prime Minister. In March 2003, the PSL left the coalition.
By 2004, the support for SLD in the polls had dropped from about 30% to just below 10%, and several high-ranking party members had been accused of taking part in high-profile political scandals by the mainstream press, including theRywin affair, in which film producerLew Rywin, claiming to be acting on behalf of the government, sought a bribe from the editor of theGazeta Wyborcza newspaper in return for favourable amendments to a proposed new law on media ownership. Prime Minister Leszek Miller was obliged under Polish law to report the attempted bribery to the police when it was brought to his attention, but did not do so.[14]
On 6 March 2004, Miller resigned as party leader and was replaced by Krzysztof Janik. On 26 March, the Sejm speakerMarek Borowski, together with other high-ranking SLD officials, announced the creation of a new centre-left party, theSocial Democratic Party of Poland. On the next day, Leszek Miller announced he would step down as Prime Minister on 2 May 2004, the day after Poland joined theEuropean Union. Miller proceeded to do so.
In the2004 European Parliament election, it only received 9% of the votes, giving it 5 of 54 seats reserved for Poland in theEuropean Parliament, as part of theParty of European Socialists.
Wojciech Olejniczak, the former Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, was elected the president of SLD on 29 May 2004, succeededJózef Oleksy, who resigned from the post of Polish Prime Minister due to false accusations of links to theKGB.
The 2004 European elections foreshadowed the SLD's huge defeat in the2005 parliamentary election, in which it won only 11.3% of the vote. This gave the party 55 seats, barely a quarter of what it had had prior to the election. It also lost all of its senators. In late 2006, acentre-leftpolitical alliance calledLeft and Democrats was created, comprising SLD and smallercentre-left parties, the Labour Union, the Social Democratic Party of Poland, and the liberalDemocratic Party – demokraci.pl. The coalition won a disappointing 13% in the2007 parliamentary election and was dissolved soon after in April 2008. On 31 May 2008, Olejniczak was replaced byGrzegorz Napieralski as an SLD leader.
In the2009 European election, theDemocratic Left Alliance-Labor Union joint ticket received 12% of the vote and seven MEPs were elected as part of the newly retitledSocialists & Democrats group.
In the2011 parliamentary election, SLD received 8.24% of the vote which gave it 27 seats in the Sejm.[15] After the elections, one of the party members, Sławomir Kopyciński, decided to leave SLD and joinPalikot's Movement.[16] On 10 December 2011, Leszek Miller was chosen to return as the party leader.
In the2014 European elections, on 25 May 2014, the SLD received 9.4% of the national vote and returned four MEPs.
In July 2015, the SLD formed theUnited Left electoral alliance along withYour Movement (TR),Labour United (UP) andThe Greens (PZ) and minor parties to contest the upcoming election.[17][18]
In the2015 parliamentary election held on 25 October 2015, the United Left list received 7.6% of the vote,[19] below the 8% threshold (electoral alliances must win at least 8% of the vote, as opposed to the 5% for individual parties),[20] leaving the SLD without parliamentary representation for the first time. Indeed, for the first time since the end of Communism, no centre-left parties won any seats in this election.[21]
In 2017, the party withdrew from theSocialist International, while maintaining ties with theProgressive Alliance.[citation needed]
For the 2019 parliamentary election, SLD formed an alliance withRazem andWiosna, known asThe Left.[22] In the2019 parliamentary election, the alliance won 12.6% of the vote and 49 seats in the Sejm, with the SLD winning 24. Later, it was announced that the Democratic Left Alliance would form with theSpring new political party called the New Left. The creation was delayed due to theCOVID-19 pandemic.[23]
The SLD is usually seen as the face of the standard Polish left, having achieved notable electoral success during the 90s and benefitting from a strongly organized network of local offices, which span 320 of Poland's 380 administrative counties. For this reason, it was often viewed as the go-to party for left-leaning Poles for the majority of Poland's modern history.[24][25] The party's monopoly on mainstream left-wing economic ideas in Poland however ended, after the right-wingLaw and Justice party adopted many economically interventionist positions, which led a considerable portion of economically left-wing Poles to vote for Law and Justice instead.[26][27]
Besides self-described left-wingers, the party enjoys the support of many members of the country's police and military, but its largest voting bloc resides among formerPZPR members, government officials and civil servants during thePPR period, which are seen as the party's core supporters. The loyal support of this voting bloc enabled the SLD to remain the largest party of the Polish left, even throughout the scandals that rocked the party in the early 2000s.[25][28][29]
However, this electoral bloc was seen as unreliable by political observers[citation needed], as despite the fact that it originally constituted a huge voting bloc, that segment of the population would inevitably shrink as its members steadily age[citation needed]. Following the passage of a "degradation law" by the ruling right-wingPiS party, which cut pensions and disability benefits to thousands of former bureaucrats, however, the party has undergone a revival, as more and more people's primary income came to be threatened by the new government policy. This led many of those affected to support the SLD, thus enlarging and mobilizing the formerly shrinking voting bloc.[25][28][30]
The SLD nonetheless made a significant effort to broaden its political appeal by joining forces with two smaller left-wing parties in 2019, creatingThe Left political alliance, which poses itself as a 'modern' take on leftism.[31][32]
| Election year | Leader | # of votes | % of vote | # of overall seats won | +/– | Government |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | Aleksander Kwaśniewski | 1,344,820 | 11.99 (#2) | 60 / 460 |  113 | PC–ZChN–PSL-PL–SLCh(1991–1992) |
| UD–ZChN–PChD–KLD–PSL-PL–SLCh–PPPP(1992–1993) | ||||||
| 1993 | Aleksander Kwaśniewski | 2,815,169 | 20.41 (#1) | 171 / 460 |  111 | SLD–PSL |
| 1997 | Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz | 3,551,224 | 27.13 (#2) | 164 / 460 | 6 | AWS–UW(1997–2000) |
| AWS Minority(2000–2001) | ||||||
| 2001 | Leszek Miller | 5,342,519 | 41.04 (#1) | 200 / 460 | 32 | SLD–UP–PSL(2001–2003) |
| SLD–UP(2003–2004) | ||||||
| SLD–UP–SDPL(2004–2005) | ||||||
| As part of theSLD-UP coalition, which won 216 seats in total. | ||||||
| 2005 | Wojciech Olejniczak | 1,335,257 | 11.31 (#4) | 55 / 460 | 145 | PiS Minority(2005) |
| PiS–SRP–LPR(2006–2007) | ||||||
| PiS Minority(2007) | ||||||
| 2007 | 2,122,981 | 13.15 (#3) | 40 / 460 | 15 | PO–PSL | |
| As part of theLeft and Democrats coalition, which won 53 seats in total. | ||||||
| 2011 | Grzegorz Napieralski | 1,184,303 | 8.24 (#5) | 27 / 460 | 13 | PO–PSL |
| 2015 | Leszek Miller | 1,147,102 | 7.55 (#5) | 0 / 460 | 27 | Extra-parliamentary |
| As part of theUnited Left coalition, which did not win any seats. | ||||||
| 2019 | Włodzimierz Czarzasty | 2,319,946 | 12.56 (#3) | 49 / 460 | 49 | PiS |
| Election year | # of votes | % of vote | # of overall seats won | Seat change | Majority | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | 2,431,178 | 21.2 | 4 / 100 | 4 | ||
| 1993 | 4,993,061 | 35.7 | 37 / 100 | 33 | SLD–PSL | |
| 1997 | 6,091,721 | 45.7 | 28 / 100 | 9 | AWS | |
| 2001 | 10,476,677 | 38.7 | 70 / 100 | 42 | SLD-UP | |
| As part of theSLD-UP coalition, which won 75 seats in total. | ||||||
| 2005 | 3,114,118 | 12.9 | 0 / 100 | 70 | PiS–SRP–LPR | |
| 2007 | 4,751,281 | 14.6 | 2 / 100 |  | PO | |
| As part of theLeft and Democrats coalition, which won 1 seat. | ||||||
| 2011 | 1,307,547 | 9.0 | 2 / 100 | | PO-PSL | |
| 2015 | 595,206 | 4.0 | 0 / 100 | | PiS | |
| As part of theUnited Left coalition, which did not win any seats. | ||||||
| 2019 | 415,745 | 2.3 | 2 / 100 | | KO-PSL-SLD | |
| Election year | Candidate | 1st round | 2nd round | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # of overall votes | % of overall vote | # of overall votes | % of overall vote | ||||
| 1990 | SupportedWłodzimierz Cimoszewicz | 1,514,025 | 9.2 (#4) | ||||
| 1995 | Aleksander Kwaśniewski | 6,275,670 | 35.1 (#1) | 9,704,439 | 51.7 (#1) | ||
| 2000 | SupportedAleksander Kwaśniewski | 9,485,224 | 53.9 (#1) | ||||
| 2005 | SupportedMarek Borowski | 1,544,642 | 10.3% (#4) | ||||
| 2010 | Grzegorz Napieralski | 2,299,870 | 13.7 (#3) | ||||
| 2015 | SupportedMagdalena Ogórek | 353,883 | 2.4 (#5) | ||||
| 2020 | SupportedRobert Biedroń | 432,129 | 2.2 (#6) | ||||
| Election year | # of votes | % of vote | # of overall seats won | +/– |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 | 569,311 | 9.4 (#5) | 5 / 54 | 5 |
| 2009 | 908,765 | 12.3 (#3) | 7 / 50 | 2 |
| 2014 | 667,319 | 9.4 (#3) | 5 / 51 | 2 |
| 2019 | 812,584 | 5.95 (38,47) (#2) | 5 / 51 | |
| As part of theEuropean Coalition, which won 22 seats in total. | ||||
| Election year | % of vote | # of overall seats won | +/– | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1998 | 31.8 (#2) | 329 / 855 | ||||
| 2002 | 24.7 (#1) | 189 / 561 | ||||
| 2006 | 14.3 (#3) | 66 / 561 | 123 | |||
| As part of theLeft and Democrats coalition. | ||||||
| 2010 | 15.2 (#4) | 85 / 561 | 19 | |||
| 2014 | 8.8 (#4) | 28 / 555 | 57 | |||
| As part of the SLD – The Left Together coalition. | ||||||
| 2018 | 6.7 (#4) | 11 / 552 | 17 | |||
| As part of the SLD – The Left Together coalition. | ||||||
| Name | Image | From | To |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aleksander Kwaśniewski | .jpg) | 23 December 1995 | 23 December 2005 |
| Name | Image | From | To |
|---|---|---|---|
| Józef Oleksy |  | 7 March 1995 | 7 February 1996 |
| Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz |  | 7 February 1996 | 31 October 1997 |
| Leszek Miller |  | 19 October 2001 | 2 May 2004 |
| Marek Belka |  | 2 May 2004 | 31 October 2005 |
European Parliament group:Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats | |||||||||||||||
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