The Polish People's Party
The Polish People's Party (Polish: Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe, PSL, also translated as Polish Peasant(s) Party) is an etatist and socially conservative political party in Poland. The party's name traces its tradition to an agrarian political party in Austro-Hungarian controlled Galician Poland, which sent MPs to the parliament in Vienna..
History
Before 1945
After Poland regained independence with the end of the World War I in 1918, the party merged with agrarian groups from territories previously occupied by Imperial Russia and formed the first PSL led by Wincenty Witos, becoming one of the most important political parties in the Second Polish Republic until it was removed by the Sanacja regime (see also People's Party).
During this time there were two parties using the term "PSL": Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe Piast and Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe Wyzwolenie. During World War II, PSL took part in forming the Polish government in exile.
Under communist regime
After the war the leader of PSL, Stanislaw Mikolajczyk, returned to Soviet occupied Poland, hoping to recreate the party structures and create anti-communist opposition. To prevent this, the Soviet-controlled communist government formed a puppet PSL-Piast and, after rigging an important referendum, forced the real PSL to unite with it, forming United People's Party - a satellite of the Communist Party. Mikolajczyk was soon forced to flee the country into political exile.
After the fall of the regime
Around the time of the fall of communism several PSL's were recreated, including: Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe - Porozumienie Ludowe, Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe - Odrodzenie, and Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe (Wilanów faction). In 1989 they merged into one and took part in forming the first postwar noncommunist government in Poland with the Solidarity grouping, and in 1990 changed its name to PSL.
Leader of the Polish People's Party
Waldemar Pawlak
It originally remained on the left of Polish politics in the 1990s, entering into coalitions with the postcommunist Democratic Left Alliance. However, in the 2001 parliamentary elections PSL received 9% of votes and formed a coalition with Democratic Left Alliance, an alliance which later broke drown. Since then PSL has moved towards more centrist and conservative policies.
After 2004
The party ran in the 2004 European Parliament election as part of the European People's Party (EPP) and received 6% of the vote, giving it 4 of 54 Polish seats in the European Parliament. In the 2005 general election the party received 7% of votes, giving it 25 seats in the Sejm and 2 in the Senate. In the 2007 parliamentary elections the party placed fourth, with 8.93% of the vote and 31 out of 460 seats, and entered into a governing coalition with the victor, the centrist-conservative Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska).
Current situation
In European parliament elections PSL scored 7,01 % of votes in 2009. Recent election pools show supports at the level of 3%.[1]
[edit] Ideological positions
Social views of the party members fall into conservatism and Christian democracy. In economic issues the PSL policy is etatist and market socialist.
Leadership
Chairman: Roman Bartoszcze (1990-1991), Waldemar Pawlak (1991-1997), Jaroslaw Kalinowski (1997-2004), Janusz Wojciechowski (2004-2005), Waldemar Pawlak (2005-...)
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