2009 European Parliament election in Poland

Poland European Parliament election, 2009

June 7, 2009 (2009-06-07)
50 seats to the European Parliament
Turnout	24.53%
First party Second party   Leader Donald Tusk Jarosław Kaczyński Party PO PiS Alliance EPP ECR Leader since 1 June 2003 18 January 2003 Last election 15 seats, 24,1% 7 seats, 12,67% Seats won 25 15 Seat change +10 +8 Popular vote 3 271 852 2 017 607 Percentage 44,43% 27,40% Swing +20,33% +14,73%   Third party Fourth party   Leader Grzegorz Napieralski Waldemar Pawlak Party Democratic Left Alliance PSL Alliance S&D EPP Leader since 31 May 2008 29 January 2005 Last election 5 seats, 9,35% 4 seats, 6,34% Seats won 7 3 Seat change +2 -1 Popular vote 908 765 516 146 Percentage 12,34% 7,01% Swing +2.99% +0,67%
Powiats won by ■ – Civic Platform ■ – Law and Justice ■ – Polish People's Party

Poland is divided into 13 electoral districts whose numbers are displayed on the picture

The European Parliament election of 2009 in Poland was the election of the delegation from Poland to the European Parliament in 2009 which took place on 7 June 2009. On 13 February the Sejm (the lower house of the Polish parliament) accepted a proposal for an amendment to the electoral court act to allow voting for the European Parliament election of 2009 to take place over 2 days i.e. the 6 and 7 June 2009. However on 5 March, the proposal was referred to the Constitutional Tribunal of the Republic of Poland by the Polish President, Lech Kaczyński.

The Polish electorate elected 50 MEPs. In the 27 EU Member States, at total of 736 MEPs were elected from 4–7 June 2009.

Outcome

As anticipated, the Civic Platform (PO) won a significant victory, winning more than 44% of the vote and gaining half of the total seats. PO's vote was higher than their 41.5% achieved at the Polish parliamentary election, 2007, and to date was the highest vote achieved by a Polish political party to either the Sejm (national legislature) or the European Parliament. Law and Justice (PiS), came second (27.4%), having more than doubled their vote and seats won as compared to the 2004 EU election, but their vote fell, in comparison to the national elections of 2007. PO polled strongest in the western half of Poland, whilst PiS polled best in the eastern half, particularly the south-east.

The largest grouping on the left, the Democratic Left Alliance-Labor Union (SLD-UP) came in at a distant third with 12.3% of the vote and seven seats. At one time, the biggest party in Poland, the Democratic Left Alliance's vote was fairly static over the past five years, and they have been unable to challenge the dominance of PO and PiS, since 2005. The Polish People's Party (PSL) came fourth with 7% of the vote, and won three seats. The remaining parties failed to reach the 5% threshold required to win seats.

The election result demonstrated a stability in voting patterns in the country. Previously, especially prior to 2005, the political environment in Poland was rather unpredictable, with big swings away from established parties, towards alternative parties, and ongoing splits and mergers of key parties. In 2009, however, the voting pattern did not vary too substantially from the 2007 elections, with the large parties consolidating their positions, and smaller parties failing to make a breakthrough.

Results

 Summary of the 7 June 2009 European Parliament elections

European party	Seats 2004	Seats 2009	Change
European People's Party (EPP)	19	28	+9
Union for Europe of the Nations (UEN)	13	15	+2
Party of European Socialists (PES)	8	7	-1
Libertas.eu (Libertas)	-	0	-
Independence/Democracy (ID)	10	0	-10
Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE)	4	0	-4
	54	50	-4
Source: http://pe2009.pkw.gov.pl/PUE/PL/WYN/W/index.htm

Contesting parties

Only eight single party committees and two coalition committees contested all 13 electoral districts. The draw was made in National Electoral Commission (Państwowa Komisja Wyborcza, PKW) Headquarters on 6 May 2009 at 10:00 CET. These were:

No	Committee
1	Real Politics Union (Unia Polityki Realnej, UPR)
2	Polish People's Party (Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe, PSL)
3	Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland (Samoobrona RP, SoRP)
4	Polish Labour Party (Polska Partia Pracy, PPP)
5	Libertas Poland (Libertas Polska)
6	Coalition Democratic Left Alliance-Labor Union (Sojusz Lewicy Demokratycznej - Unia Pracy, SLD-UP)
7	Coalition Agreement for the Future - CenterLeft (Porozumienie dla Przyszłości, CentroLewica, PdP)
8	Right of the Republic (Prawica Rzeczypospolitej, PRP)
9	Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska, PO)
10	Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, PiS)

Notes: SLD-UP - coalition of Democratic Left Alliance and Labour Union
CenterLeft - coalition of Democratic Party – demokraci.pl, Social Democracy of Poland and Greens 2004

One single party committee, one coalition committee and one committee of 'grouped independents' managed to register in at least one district:

No	Committee	Constituency
11	Polish Socialist Party (Polska Partia Socjalistyczna, PPS)	Olsztyn (Podlaskie and Warmian-Masurian)
12	Coalition Forward Poland - Piast (Naprzód Polsko - Piast, NP-Piast)	Katowice (Silesian)
11	Independents I Love Poland (Kocham Polskę)	Katowice (Silesian)

Note: NP-Piast - coalition of Forward Poland and Polish People's Party "Piast"

Leaders by Constituency

Constituency	PO	PiS	SLD-UP	PSL	PdP	Libertas	Cite
Pomeranian	Janusz Lewandowski	Hanna Foltyn-Kubicka	Longin Pastusiak	Wojciech Przybylski	Dariusz Szwed	Tomasz Sommer	[1]
Kuyavian-Pomeranian	Tadeusz Zwiefka	Richard Czarnecki	Janusz Zemke	Eugeniusz Kłopotek	Henryk Kierzkowski	Ryszard Kozłowski	[2]
Podlaskie and Warmian-Masurian	Krzysztof Lisek	Jacek Kurski	Tadeusz Iwiński	Stanisław Żelichowski	Marian Szamatowicz	Ryszard Bender	[3]
Warsaw	Danuta Hübner	Michał Kamiński	Wojciech Olejniczak	Janusz Piechociński	Dariusz Rosati	Artur Zawisza	[4]
Masovian	Jacek Kozłowski	Adam Bielan	Marek Wikiński	Jarosław Kalinowski	Marek Czarnecki	Dariusz Grabowski	[5]
Łódź	Jacek Saryusz-Wolski	Urszula Krupa	Jolanta Szymanek-Deresz	Adam Fronczak	Magdalena Środa	Bolesław Borysiuk	[6]
Greater Poland	Filip Kaczmarek	Konrad Szymański	Marek Siwiec	Andrzej Grzyb	Sylwia Pusz	Anna Sobecka	[7]
Lublin	Lena Kolarska - Bobińska	Mirosław Piotrowski	Jacek Czerniak	Edward Wojtas	Marek Borowski	Zdzisław Podkański	[8]
Subcarpathian	Marian Krzaklewski	Tomasz Poręba	Marta Niewczas	Mieczysław Janowski	Krzysztof Martens	Daniel Pawłowiec	[9]
Lesser Poland and Świętokrzyskie	Róża Gräfin Von Thun Und Hohenstein	Zbigniew Ziobro	Andrzej Szejna	Czesław Siekierski	Janusz Onyszkiewicz	Wojciech Wierzejski	[10]
Silesian	Jerzy Buzek	Marek Migalski	Jerzy Markowski	Janusz Moszyński	Genowefa Grabowska	Piotr Ślusarczyk	[11]
Lower Silesian and Opole	Jacek Protasiewicz	Ryszard Legutko	Lidia Geringer De Oedenberg	Stanisław Rakoczy	Józef Pinior	Janusz Dobrosz	[12]
Lubusz and West Pomeranian	Sławomir Nitras	Marek Gróbarczyk	Bogusław Liberadzki	Juliusz Engelhardt	Radosław Popiela	Krzysztof Zaremba	[13]

Opinion polls

Source	Date	PO	PiS	SLD-UP	PSL	PdP	Undecided
CBOS	March 2009	40%	17%	10%	5%	1%	21%
TNS OBOP	2–5 April 2009	54%	21%	7%	6%	-	28%
PBS	3–5 April 2009	49%	22%	13%	6%	3%	-
GFK	24–26 April 2009	47%	26%	12%	6%	-	-
Gemius	5 May 2009	40%	16%	11%	3%	2%	-
TNS OBOP	6–7 May 2009	47%	22%	12%	8%	2%	-
Homo Homini	7 May 2009	48,9%	22,4%	12,2%	4,6%	1,3%	8%
TNS OBOP	15 May 2009	48%	25%	8%	5%	5%
Gemius	19 May 2009	39%	20%	7%	6%	4%	-
Homo Homini	26 May 2009	45%	25%	11%	7%	3%	-
GFK	3–4 June 2009	51%	24%	15%	6%	-	-
SMG/KRC	5 June 2009	54%	25%	9%	7%	-	-

See also

• Politics of Poland
• Poland (European Parliament constituency)

External links

• (pl) (en) European Parliament election, 2009 on PKW.gov.pl