ABSTRACT

The postcommunist majority in the Sejm demands a proportional electoral system, hoping to save their necks in the coming elections. A picture of the political differentiation of Polish society in the mid-1980s reflects the general political situation of those days, but it indicates that there was also a potential for change. Ethnic strife, inflation, unemployment, and on top of all this the oil crisis. But Bujak’s bitterness comes, one may suppose, not from the mere recognition of all these problems. The Solidarity movement has been fundamentally democratic, sometimes becoming almost obsessed with democratic procedures, a threat of “manipulation,” and openness of political process. Ethnic questions have been perceived in Poland as very sensitive; they were seldom the object of surveys, and even more rarely were they researched in connection with other political, social, and economic problems. Lech Walesa’s electorate, apart from an overrepresentation of the less-educated and older voters, in general reflects the heterogeneity of Polish society.