Parliamentary elections were held in
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
on 5 November 1922, with
Senate
A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...
elections held a week later on 12 November.
Dieter Nohlen
Dieter Nohlen (born 6 November 1939) is a German academic and political scientist. He currently holds the position of Emeritus Professor of Political Science in the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences of the University of Heidelberg. An ex ...
& Philip Stöver (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', p1491 The elections were governed by the
March Constitution of Poland, and saw the
Christian Union of National Unity coalition emerge as the largest bloc in the
Sejm
The Sejm (), officially known as the Sejm of the Republic of Poland (), is the lower house of the bicameralism, bicameral parliament of Poland.
The Sejm has been the highest governing body of the Third Polish Republic since the Polish People' ...
with 163 of the 444 seats.
The resulting coalitions were unstable, and the situation - difficult from the start, with
assassination
Assassination is the willful killing, by a sudden, secret, or planned attack, of a personespecially if prominent or important. It may be prompted by political, ideological, religious, financial, or military motives.
Assassinations are orde ...
of
Polish president Gabriel Narutowicz in December shortly after the elections - culminated in 1926 with the
May Coup.
Results
Sejm
Senate
Ethnoreligious voting analysis
According to Kopstein and Wittenberg, 39% of the majority Catholic population voted for right-wing parties, 29% for non-revolutionary left-wing parties and 25% for centrist parties. The other ethnoreligious groups, including Uniates, Jews and Orthodox Christians voted largely for parties representing minority groups.
Some regional differences were observed; in western Poland, 9% of the Catholic vote went to minority interest parties, which has been attributed in part to German Catholic voting, but in the east, only 1% did. Ethnic Polish support for the right wing was stronger in the east of the country, where 40% voted for right-wing parties, as opposed to the south where 16% did. No detectable regional variation existed among Jews.
[Kopstein & Wittenberg, p99] The lack of support for the center and right among the major minorities (Jews, Ukrainians and Belarusians) was attributed to ethnic polarisation that was exacerbated by discrimination and chauvinism from Polish officials.
[Kopstein & Wittenberg, p98] Despite the success of minority parties, parties describing themselves as "Polish" refused to form a government with minority parties, and there was not one non-ethnic Polish cabinet member in the interwar period, though interethnic cooperation could still be seen in Ukrainian and Belarusian support for the Sikorski government.
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References
Further reading
*A. J. Groth, ''Polish Elections 1919-1928'', Slavic Review, Vol. 24, No. 4 (Dec., 1965), pp. 653–66
JSTOR
{{Polish elections
Parliamentary elections in Poland
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
Parliamentary
In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...