Economic influences on the political support for market reform in post‐communist transitions: Some evidence from the 1993 polish parliamentary elections

Abstract

FOR THOSE CONVINCED that 'shock therapy' represented the best, or only viable, approach to building healthy economies in post-communist societies, the comprehensive victory of the two main post-communist forces-the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) and the Polish Peasant Party (PSL)-in gaining over two-thirds of the seats in both the lower house (the Sejm) and the upper house (the Senate) in the 1993 Polish parliamentary election appeared both disappointing and worrying. The disappointment arose because the swing to the left came despite the fact that, in many ways, Poland, by September 1993, had made one of the most successful1 transitions from central planning of all the former post-communist societies. This view is strengthened if one recalls its relatively bad starting position, with hyperinflation and very large external debts, in 1989 (see Balcerowicz, 1994). It was a transition whose success could with increasing credibility be attributed to the superiority of its shock therapy approach to economic reform compared with the various forms of 'gradualism' practised in other post-communist societies,2 especially those countries in the former Soviet Union. Compared with the other post-communist countries, Poland's economic performance had begun to look relatively good since the resumption of measured economic growth in the spring of 1992. This growth had gathered momentum during the tenureship of the last 'post-Solidarity' government, formed round a coalition between the Democratic Union (UD), Congress of Liberal Democracy (KLD) and the Catholic parties, under Hanna Suchocka of the UD. When it sought a renewed and stronger mandate for the continuation of economic reform from Polish voters, those voters largely snubbed the parties of the coalition. Instead they turned in greatest numbers to the post-communist parties-SLD and PSL-but also gave quite substantial support to a post-Solidarity new left party-Union of Labour (UP)-and to the Confederation for an Independent Poland (KPN):3 all parties advancing programmes containing elements antipathetic towards at least some reforms. Thus Poland joined a trend in the former centrally planned economies of a return of political support for the communists or their successor parties, and/or new parties opposed to market