Coalition for the Republic

Coalition for the Republic
Koalicja dla Rzeczypospolitej (Polish)
Founded6 July 1993
Dissolved20 September 1993
IdeologyChristian democracy
Anti-communism
Anti-austerity
Factions:
Agrarianism
Political positionCenter-right
Members
Colors  Red
SloganCoalition of clean hands.
(Polish: Koalicja czystych rąk.)

The Coalition for the Republic (Polish: Koalicja dla Rzeczypospolitej, KdR) was a Christian-democratic electoral alliance in Poland. It consisted of several parties - the Movement for the Republic (RdR), Solidarność 80, National Christian Movement "Polish Action" (Akcja Polska), Freedom Party (PW), Upper Silesian Christian Democracy (GChD), Party of Polish Democracy (SDP), Polish People's Christian Forum "Fatherland" ("Ojcowizna") and the Patriotic Forum of Fighting Poland.[1][2]

History

The Coalition was initially formed on 6 July 1993, after a failure of two-month long coalition talks between RdR and the Centre Agreement (PC), the original party of RdR chairman Jan Olszewski. A failed attempt at bringing the Polish People's Party - Peasants' Agreement (PSL-PL) into the coalition left it as the weakest of the three "center-right" coalitions (other ones being the Catholic Electoral Committee "Fatherland" (KKW or "Ojczyzna") and Centre Agreement – Polish Union (PC-ZP)) running in the 1993 Polish parliamentary election.[3]

KdR ran a campaign under the slogan "coalition of clean hands" (Polish: „Koalicja czystych rąk"). The campaign was notably similar to PC-ZP, both attacking the "neocommunist" Alliance of the Democratic Left (SLD) and "pseudoliberal" Democratic Union (UD) and Liberal Democratic Congress (KLD), the Balcerowicz plan aswell as supporting lustration.

The coalition only contested one election, the 1993 parliamentary election, winning 2.70% of valid votes. Despite de-facto being a coalition, it registered as a party, thus only needing 5% of valid votes to cross the electoral threshold, which it failed to pass regardless. Their failure to pass the threshold contributed to the SLD's landslide victory in the election.

Electoral results

Sejm

Election year # of
votes 		% of
vote 		# of
overall seats won 		Government
1993 371,923 2.70 (#14)
0 / 460
 Extra-parliamentary

Senate

Election # of
votes 		% of
votes 		# of
overall seats won
1993 290,361 1.06 (#15)
0 / 100

References

  1. ^ "Forum Patriotyczne Polski Walczącej". 1993. Retrieved 2024-04-01.
  2. ^ Stodolny, Marek (24 June 2015). Ruch Konserwatywno–Ludowy w III RP (in Polish). Poznań: Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu.
  3. ^ Millard, Frances (1994-09-01). "The Polish Parliamentary Election of September, 1993". Communist and Post-Communist Studies. 27 (3): 295–313. doi:10.1016/0967-067X(94)90016-7. JSTOR 45301898. Retrieved 2024-03-29.