Polish legislative election, 1947

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January 17, 1947 (1947-01-17)

1952 →

All 444 seats in the Sejm

	Majority party	Minority party	Third party

Leader	Bolesław Bierut	Stanisław Mikołajczyk	Tadeusz Michejda
Party	BD	PSL	SP
Leader since	December 22, 1948	January 21, 1946	1946
Seats won	394	28	12
Seat change	394	28	12
Popular vote	9,003,682	1,154,847	530,979
Percentage	80.1%	10.3%	4.7%

	Fourth party

Leader	Bronisław Drzewiecki
Party	PSL "NW"
Leader since	1947
Last election	Does not exist
Seats won	7
Seat change	7
Popular vote	397,754
Percentage	3.5%

Premier before election

Edward Osóbka-Morawski
PPS

Premier

Józef Cyrankiewicz
PPS

Edward Osóbka-Morawski
PPS

Józef Cyrankiewicz
PPS

Parliamentary elections were held in Poland on 19 January 1947, the first since World War II. According to the official results, the Democratic Bloc (Blok Demokratyczny), dominated by the communist Polish Workers Party (PPR) and also including the Polish Socialist Party (PPS), People's Party (SL), Democratic Party (SD) and non-partisan candidates, gained 80.1% of the vote and 394 of the 444 seats in the Legislative Sejm. The largest opposition party, the Polish People's Party, was officially credited with 28 seats. However, the elections were characterized by rampant intimidation and violence; all non-communist and/or anti-communist opposition candidates and activists were persecuted by the Volunteer Reserve Militia (ORMO) with almost 100,000 functionaries armed with guns, deployed across the country in order to ensure a communist victory.The results were falsified on a massive scale. According to one of the Soviet officials who helped orchestrate the fraud, the Democratic Bloc had actually won about 50% of the votes at most. In turn, the opposition claimed that it would have won a decisive victory had the election been conducted fairly.

The election gave the Soviets and the communist-dominated Polish satellite government enough legitimacy to claim that Poland was 'free and democratic', and allowing Poland to sign the charter of the United Nations.

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Wikipedia