ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses primarily on the outcomes of the first and second parliamentary elections in post-1989 Poland. The presidential election that took place in fall 1990 deeply influenced the shape of the electoral law adopted for the next parliamentary elections. The initiation of a new party system occurred simultaneously. The chapter examines the reasons the Polish Parliament voted in 1991 for an electoral system based on proportional representation (PR) for elections to the Sejm and for a plurality system for elections to the Senate. Because Poland is an extreme example of (more or less visible) fragmentation of the political arena, the Sejm's electoral rules have been fiercely criticized for causing that splintering, with the blame placed particularly on the adoption of the Hare method of seat allocation (that is, of the largest remainder) with no legal threshold. The chapter discusses inaccuracy of that criticism in detail.
