Page:CIA-RDP01-00707R000200070029-7.pdf/41

 APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200070029-7

3. The electoral process (C)

Under the constitution, simultaneous elections for the national legislature as well as for local government organs are held every 4 years. As in other Communist countries, the electoral process uses the façade of parliamentary procedure to mark what is essentially the appointment of Communist-selected candidates to predetermined positions on all levels of government where they will cooperate well with the corresponding level of the Communist party apparatus. Because the exercise of the franchise is compulsory, and because each voter is presented with a single slate of officially approved candidates - none of whom are identified by political party - the electorate does not elect, it merely votes, i.e., it approves or disapproves of predetermined election results. Indeed, the distribution of seats in the parliament (Sejm) between the PZPR, the ZSL, and SD, and the non-party delegates is predetermined and has remained essentially the same since the elections of 1961.

Since 1957, however, there has been some limited choice among the official candidates, whose number has exceeded the number of seats to be filled. Since the "excess" - usually two or three - candidates are listed at the bottom of the list of about eight to 10 in each of the 80 constituencies, the voter's scratching out of some of the candidates heading the list - usually regime leaders - does constitute a form of popularity poll. Few voters, however, have exercised this right since the 1957 elections, and fewer still take the option of scratching out the entire list, a gesture representing a "no" vote against the slate in its entirety. In the latest elections, of 19 March 1972, this gesture was made by 103,155 voters, or less than half of 1% of the valid votes. In practice, therefore, the voters' ability to cross off one or more names from the ballot does not seriously jeopardize the election "prospects" of the officially preferred candidates, but merely affects the more or less overwhelming vote in their favor.

The National Unity Front (FJN) supervises the distribution and dissemination of pre-election propaganda and the selection of candidates for local government organs as well as for the Sejm. The selection of nominees theoretically takes place at open meetings at all administrative levels, but in reality such meetings merely introduce the Communist-approved candidates to selected groups of their potential constituents.

Postwar Poland has had seven national elections: January 1947, October 1952, January 1957, April 1961, May 1965, June 1969, and March 1972. The 1947 election, the last in which an organized,

'''FIGURE 8. Electoral composition of the Sejm (U/OU)''' (chart/picture)

genuinely non-Communist party contested the consolidation of Communist power, was distinguished by violence during the election campaign. The Communists under Gomulka's leadership employed every method from fraud to murder to insure victory for the official government list and to defeat the Peasant Party of Stanislaw Mikalajczyk. The official results of this election - 90% in favor of the Communist-sponsored list - marked an end to all legal political opposition to Communist rule.

The 1952 parliamentary elections were held under the new constitution's electoral provisions. These specified that elections were to be direct, by secret ballot, under universal and equal suffrage, and without intimidation. All citizens over 18 years of age, of sound mind, and not deprived of their civil rights by court action were declared eligible to vote. In practice, a single list of candidates exactly corresponding to the number of seats filled was presented to the voters by the National Unity Front. The number of seats allowed to each of the three political parties and to "independents" was decided by the Communists even before nominations were made, and party affiliation of candidates was in fact largely ignored even by official propaganda. Together with rampant police terror which made a voter

35

APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200070029-7