Parliamentary elections were held in

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

on 16 April 1961. Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', p1491 They were the third elections to the

Sejm The Sejm (English: , Polish: ), officially known as the Sejm of the Republic of Poland ( Polish: ''Sejm Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej''), is the lower house of the bicameral parliament of Poland. The Sejm has been the highest governing body of ...

, the

parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...

of the People's Republic of Poland, and fourth in

Communist Poland The Polish People's Republic ( pl, Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL) was a country in Central Europe that existed from 1947 to 1989 as the predecessor of the modern Republic of Poland. With a population of approximately 37.9 million nea ...

Background

The 1961 elections followed the liberalized rules prepared for those in

1957 1957 ( MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1957th year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' (AD) designations, the 957th year of the 2nd millennium, the 57th year of the 20th century, and the 8th year ...

, but compared to the situation five years ago, the Polish society was much more apathetic and disappointed with the government. The elections, as all the others under the communist regimes in Poland, were not free and the results of the 1961 elections are considered to be falsified, again a common occurrence of that time. The electoral system was very similar to that in

East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

where ostensibly multiple parties were present, but their involvement was tempered by mandatory membership of a "unity list" which was ever loyal to the communist hegemony. In practice, electors only had the choice to approve or disapprove the lists, rather than genuinely get to pick their preferred candidate. There were independents; however, they would get elected only if the majority of voters in a multi-member electorate voted against the official list. Additionally, those who were allowed to register and run as independents had to go through an approval process, which invariably rejected any who were too oppositional. Although there was no blatant falsification like

ballot stuffing Electoral fraud, sometimes referred to as election manipulation, voter fraud or vote rigging, involves illegal interference with the process of an election, either by increasing the vote share of a favored candidate, depressing the vote share of ...

or overt intimidation of voters who turned out, historiographers of Polish history invariably consider these elections to have been fraudulent - due to the above peculiarities.

Results

The official results were: attendance, 95%. Communist parties' list prepared by

Front of National Unity :''This is an article about a Polish political organization. For article about a Bolivian political party, see National Unity Front.'' Front of National Unity or National Unity Front ( pl, Front Jedności Narodu, FJN) was a popular front supervis ...

received 89.5% votes. 460 members were elected, 256 from

Polish United Workers' Party The Polish United Workers' Party ( pl, Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza; ), commonly abbreviated to PZPR, was the communist party which ruled the Polish People's Republic as a one-party state from 1948 to 1989. The PZPR had led two other lega ...

(PZPR), 117 from United People's Party (ZSL), 39 from

Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to: *Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to: Active parties Africa *Botswana Democratic Party *Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea *Gabonese Democratic Party *Demo ...

(SD), 48 independents (majority, "Social independents" and several, "Catholic independents" from the Znak association). However, as the other parties and "independents" were subordinate to PZPR, its control of the Sejm was total.

Background

Results

References

Further reading