Freedom Union (Poland)
The Unia Wolności (German Freedom Union UW) was a liberal political party in Poland. It was founded by the combined Democratic Union members (UD ) and the Liberal Democratic Congress ( KLD ) in April 1994 and 2005 in the partia Demokratyczna - converted demokraci.pl.
Party History
In 1994, the Democratic Union ( UD) went up in the newly founded Unia Wolności (UW ) together with the Liberal Democratic Congress ( KLD ). The first chairman Tadeusz Mazowiecki and former chairman of the Democratic Union of the Party for Christian- democratic values (but far away from religious fundamentalism ) and was therefore criticized by the left wing of the party to Władysław Frasyniuk and Zofia Kuratowska.
Leszek Balcerowicz in 1995 was elected the new party leader. As a presidential candidate asked the party in 1995 the Left Jacek Kuroń, a prominent opposition figures from the 1970s and 1980s, as well as labor minister in the governments Mazowiecki and Hanna Suchockas on which, however, with only 9.22 % of the vote bad sections. The reason for the low performance was due to the fact that Kuroń not accepted by the liberal electorate of the party and was supported mainly by the sympathizers of the social democratic SLD and the left Unia Pracy.
Until 1997, the party remained in opposition to the post-communist and social democratic governments Waldemar Pawlak, Józef Oleksy and Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz. The UW criticized decided the encrustation of the political institutions and widespread corruption and campaigned for the continuation of economic and social reforms. Despite the strong criticism of the SLD and PSL moderate conservative party participated in the adoption of the new Polish constitution in 1997, together with such third parties, in part.
After the parliamentary elections in September 1997, which was the come from the Solidarity movement AWS win, the UW joined as a junior partner in the center- right government of Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek. In public, the party chairman Leszek Balcerowicz reached the highest level of awareness, as he was responsible for the liberalization of the Polish economy as finance minister. It the so-called second Balcerowicz Plan was proposed, but rather came to skepticism when conservative coalition partners.
In the government Buzek also sat among others Geremek ( Foreign Minister ), former Prime Minister Hanna Suchocka ( Minister of Justice ) and Janusz Onyszkiewicz ( Minister of Defence ) for the UW. Because of the social hardships that brought the economic reforms themselves, both Balcerowicz, as well as political liberalism in Poland lost rapidly increasing in popularity.
Due to various misunderstandings in fiscal policy and government conflicts occurred in June 2001, some liberal ministers of the UW left the government and the coalition collapsed. The minority government Buzek but enjoyed at important bills until the fall of 2001 to support the UW in the Sejm.
After the success of the independent liberal candidate Andrzej Olechowski in the presidential elections in autumn 2000 (19 % support for a non-party candidates), more and more leading politicians left ( like the later Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Janusz Lewandowski ) the party and founded a rival party, the Civic Platform (Polish: Platforma Obywatelska, PO ), which is more closer to the Conservatives and was guided by Christian values.
After the election debacle of AWS in September 2001, the UW reached no mandate for the Sejm and was present only in the Polish Senate by five members. She joined in 2002 from out of the European People's Party and turned to the international liberal organizations. The founding chairman Tadeusz Mazowiecki, who pursued a church -friendly line and aware relied on Christian values , would not mitvollziehen this break with the Christian Democracy and resigned from the UW.
In 2002, the party lost the elections then also clear. Within Poland, she fell so in a political insignificance, although surprisingly again could skip the five-percent hurdle in the European elections in 2004 and moved with four deputies in the European Parliament, the ALDE group joined. One of the deputies was until 2008, the 1998 winner of the Charlemagne Prize Geremek.
In 2005, the Unia Wolności in partia Demokratyczna was - demokraci.pl (German Democratic Party) converted.
Party chairman
Election results in the presidential election
Election results in elections to the European Parliament
- 2004: 7.33%