Political Preferences in Elections to Sejm in Lesser Poland and Subcarpathian Voivodships in Comparison

2017;
: 85-94
https://doi.org/10.23939/shv2017.02.085
Revised: October 17, 2017
Accepted: November 24, 2017
Authors:
1
Lviv Polytechnic National University

The article examines the political preferences of voters in two voivodeships – Lesser Poland and Subcarpathian voivoships. Polish political parties were divided on the left-center-right axis. In the research was given the list of names of the most important political parties in Poland and their ideological positioning in the left-right spectrum in period 1991–2015. Also were described results of main political parties of Poland in this peculiar region of Western Galicia since 1991 and were stipulated the difference between overall results in Poland and local peculiarities. Main attention in the article was dedicated to development of such political parties as Law and Justice, Alliance of Left Democrats, Civic Platform, Alliance of Freedom. In article is described the situation, that in the two regions of the historically formed region of Western Galicia, especially in Lesser Poland and Subcarpathian voivoships, the parliamentary elections won more right-wing or center-right political parties. Since parliamentary elections in 2005, the conservative party Law and Justice has been consistently winning in Western Galicia. In the next elections from 2005, 2007 and 2011, PiS remained the largest and then the only right parliamentary faction. PiS won the parliamentary election in 2015 and created a one-party government thanks to huge support of Galician voters. The article was elaborated In framework of the implementation of the individual research “Electoral preferences of the population on the lands of Western and Eastern Galicia in Poland and Ukraine in 1991–2016: similarities and differences. Historical context in the frames of grant from K. Skubishevski Foundation”. The ideological positioning of electorat was calculated in Lesser Poland and in Subcarpathian voivoships taking into account all elections to the Sejm.

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