Solidarity Citizens' Committee
|
Solidarity Citizens' Committee
Komitet Obywatelski "Solidarność" |
|
|---|---|
| Chairman | Bronisław Geremek |
| Founded | 18 December 1988 |
| Dissolved | 1991 |
| Headquarters | Warsaw |
| Newspaper |
Gazeta Wyborcza Tygodnik Solidarność |
| Ideology |
Big tent Anti-communism Liberal democracy |
| Political position | Big tent |
| Religion | Roman Catholicism |
| International affiliation | None |
The Solidarity Citizens' Committee (Komitet Obywatelski "Solidarność", acronym KO "S"), also known as "Citizens' Electoral Committee" (Obywatelski Komitet Wyborczy), previously named "Citizens' Committee with Lech Wałęsa" (Komitet Obywatelski przy Lechu Wałęsie) was an (initially semi-) legal political organisation of the democratic opposition in communist Poland. Formed on 18 December 1988, it spontaneously evolved into a nationwide movement attracting a vast majority of supporters of radical political change in the country after the conclusion of the Round Table talks (6 February to 4 April 1989) and the announcement of semi-free general elections for 4 June that year.
The relaunched union weekly Tygodnik Solidarność, then edited by Tadeusz Mazowiecki, and the new Gazeta Wyborcza (today Poland's largest daily paper), edited by Adam Michnik and launched on 8 May 1989, became influential organs for the movement.
According to the Round Table Agreement, 35%, i.e., 161 out of 460 seats in the so-called "Contract Sejm" (Sejm kontraktowy), the lower house of the Polish parliament, were to be allocated by a free election. In the run-up to the election, the Citizens' Committee decided to nominate as many candidates in each constituency as there were seats democratically available. The Round Table Agreement also included the restoration of a less powerful upper house of parliament, the Senate, which had been abolished in 1946, to accommodate the opposition's demand for parliamentary representation. The new senate was to have 100 seats, all of which were to be allocated in a free election. The Citizens' Committee nominated a candidate for each seat.
In its campaigning, the Citizens' Committee relied on its "Electoral Paper" Gazeta Wyborcza, and election posters printed mostly unofficially by an extensive network of samizdat print shops, which had been operating throughout the 1980s. Every candidate had an article in Gazeta Wyborcza and posters showing them with the figurehead of the opposition, Wałęsa. There were other motifs, too, most famously perhaps the minimalist "High Noon" poster billing the election as the ultimate showdown between the government and the people.
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