Political preferences of the ukrainian national minority in Poland in elections to the European Parliament

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Lviv Polytechnic National University

Political preferences of the ukrainian national minority in Poland in elections to the European Parliament

Maryan Lopata

ПОЛІТИЧНІ ПРЕФЕРЕНЦІЇ УКРАЇНСЬКОЇ НАЦІОНАЛЬНОЇ МЕНШИНИ У ПОЛЬЩІ НА ВИБОРАХ ДО ЄВРОПЕЙСЬКОГО ПАРЛАМЕНТУ

Мар'ян Лопата

Національний університет “Львівська політехніка”

Пояснено політичні преференції української національної меншини в Польщі на виборах до Європейського Парламенту. Проаналізовано політичні преференції української національної меншини на чотирьох виборах до Європейського парламенту у 2004, 2009, 2014 та 2019 рр. Гіпотеза дослідження полягає у тому, що виборча поведінка представників української національної меншини у Польщі відрізняється від виборчої поведінки решти населення свого регіону постійного проживання, і українська національна меншина голосувала більше за представників ліберальних та лівих політичних сил, ніж за ультраправі і праві політичні партії на виборах до Європарламенту.

У 2004-2019 рр. на виборах до Європарламенту можна було спостерігати цікаве явище в гмінах зі значною часткою української національної меншини. Результати виборів до Європарламенту в “українських” гмінах, розташованих у північній частині Польщі, де виборці є досить ліберальними (Громадянська Платформа, ліві) або, можливо, антисистемними (Самооборона), суттєво не відрізнялися від решти гмін своїх регіонів. Так було в Західнопоморському та Вармінсько-Мазурському воєводствах. З іншого боку, у гміні Команьча, що в Підкарпатському воєводстві, в якому переважає консервативний електорат, суттєво відрізнялися від інших гмін регіону. Результати виборів у Команчі були подібними до результатів, отриманих у північній та західній Польщі, ніж до результатів притаманних південно-східній Польщі, де розташована гміна.

Ми дійшли до висновку, що загалом у тих гмінах, де громадяни Польщі українського походження становлять щонайменше 10 % від всього населення муніципалітетів, більше голосують за більш ліберальні партії до Європарламенту. Натомість підтримка правих політичних партій: “Право і справедливість”, “Кукіз'15”, Конфедерація Корвіна як популістських правих партій є нижчою ніж в інших частинах регіонів, до якого ці гміни належать. Навіть під час виборів до Європейського Парламенту у 2019 році політична партія “Право і Справедливість”, яка перемогла у всій країні, мала нижчу підтримку в “українських” гмінах.

Політичну партію “Громадянська платформа” сприймають представники української національної меншини як значно поміркованішу політичну партію, що гарантує, представникам національних меншин більше почуття безпеки та комфорту у польській державі.

Ключові слова: виборча поведінка, європейські вибори, Польща, українська національна меншина.

The paper describes, interprets, and characterizes the results of elections to the European Parliament in Poland based on the voting behaviour of the Ukrainian national minority. In the article, four European elections 2004, 2009, 2014, and 2019 were considered. The research hypothesizes is that the Ukrainian national minority could have a distinct voting behaviour from their region of permanent living and voted obviously for the representatives of liberal and leftist political forces rather than for far-right and right, or even far-left candidates on the elections to the European Parliament.

In the years 2004-2019, an interesting phenomenon could be observed in the elections to the European Parliament in the area of communes inhabited by the Ukrainian population. In the «Ukrainian» municipalities located in the northern part of Poland, where the electorate was rather liberal (Civic Platform) or possibly anti-system (Self-Defence) the election results did not differ from the rest of the regions. This phenomenon was inherent in both the West Pomeranian and Warmia-Masurian voivodships. On the other hand, in the Komancza commune, which is located in the Subcarpathian voivodship, in which the conservative electorate has been the strongest, the results of the voting in the “Ukrainian” commune were significantly different from other communes of the region. In other words, the results of the elections in Komancza were much more similar to the results obtained in northern and western Poland than to the results in the SouthEastern Poland. The article concludes that, in general, those municipalities, where the citizens of Ukrainian descent consist at least 10% of the overall population, vote for more liberal parties to the European Parliament. Instead, the support of rightwing political parties like Law and Justice, Kukiz'15, Korvin Confederation as a right-wing parties is much lower. Even during elections to the European Parliament in 2019, Law and Justice, victorious in the rest of the country, evidently had lower support in “Ukrainian” municipalities.

The Civic Platform is perceived as a much more moderate party, guaranteeing, in their opinion, representatives of the Ukrainian minority a greater sense of security and comfort of living in the Polish state.

Key words: voting behaviour, European elections, Poland, Ukrainian national minority.

Effective participation of national minorities in political life is one of the important components of democratic societies. Thanks to the effective participation in political life and elections of national minorities, it creates opportunities to represent and preserve their identity. Formation and consolidation of democratic systems, processes of dissemination of democratic norms and standards should systematically consider interests of national minorities and include them into the management system, government representations, involving representative offices, and legislative bodies. Creating complete conditions, the introduction of effective legal mechanisms for the national minorities to active political participation should not be considered by the states not only as a legal obligation but also as an integral element of rational management. One of the most considerable national minority in Poland is the Ukrainian national minority.

The purpose of the scientific article is to explore the electoral behaviour of the Ukrainian national minority of Poland to the European Parliament and its impact on the election results in areas of its permanent living.

Studies on the issues of national minorities and especially Ukrainian national minority are undertaken by researchers dealing with various scientific disciplines. Nowadays, also in Poland, despite a relatively low national and ethnic diversity, knowledge on this subject is gradually being developed and deepened, especially by sociologists, anthropologists and historians -Adamczyk L., Lodzinski S. [Adamczuk 2006], Sakson A. [ Sakson 2014], Halczak B. [Halczak 2010].

This topic was also taken into account by representatives of other scientific disciplines, including geographers - M. Barwinski Barwinski M. [Barwinski 2008, 2013, 2014] and others. The most significant work in this field is the paper of Wojtaszczyk M. [Wojtaszczyk 2015] who investigated the political preferences of the national minorities in Poland. Nevertheless, the is a huge lack of comprehensive analysis of political and electoral preferences of Ukrainian national minority, with the exception of history, cultural issues and relation of this particular minority with its motherland - Ukraine.

Ukrainians are the most territorially dispersed national minority among all the national and ethnic groups of Poland [Barwinski 2008]. Currently, they live mainly in northern Poland, but they traditional settlement area was the south-eastern part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth [Barwinski 2013]. Due to such a high concentration, they do not actually form larger clusters [Barwinski 2014]. Even in the communes that have been analyzed in detail (Table 1), Ukrainians constitute only a 10-20 % of the whole population, which means that, that they have no decisive voice on the final results in parliamentary elections. Undoubtedly, however, even a small percentage of minorities as in this case makes these communes dinstinct from the rest of Poland in terms of the national and ethnic diversity of its population. Therefore, despite the obvious abuse of this term, they will be referred in this paper as “Ukrainian” municipalities.

According to the new Census in 2011[Struktura narodowo-etniczna, j^zykowa i wyznaniowa ludnosci Polski 2015], Ukrainian national minority in Poland is a highly dispersed group. Most of them lived in the Warmian-Masurian voivodship (13.4 thousand). The second-largest cluster unexpectedly turned out to be the

Masovian Voivodeship (6.6 thousand). Larger groups were also noticeable in the following voivodeships: Lublin (2.2 thousand), Lesser Poland (2 thousand), Subcarpathian (4.1 thousand), Podlaskie (2.7 thousand), Pomeranian (4.2 thousand) [Halczak 2010]. and the West Pomeranian Voivodeship (almost 5,000) [Gudaszewski 2015]. As of 2002, the Ukrainian population did not exceed 20% of the population in any of the municipalities [Sakson 2014]. In four municipalities of the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, one commune of the municipalities Voivodeship and one commune of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship, representatives of Ukrainian national minority exceed the threshold of 10% of the population (Table 1). minority poland electoral parliament

Table 1 Municipalities according to the National Census 2011, where at least 10 % of population belong to the Ukrainian national minority.

Source: Data from the Census of 2011. https://stat.gov.pl/spisy-powszechne/nsp-2011/nsp-2011-wyniki/

The first elections to the European Parliament in the Polish history took place in June 2004, more than a month after Poland joined the European Union. During the vote, Polish citizens elected 54 out of 732 MEPs. The electoral law assumed the division of Poland into thirteen constituencies and made participation in the distribution of seats conditional on exceeding the 5 % electoral threshold. The electoral lists were registered by 21 committees, among which there was no minority election committee [Data of the Parlgov project. EP Election 2004].

The elections were won by the Civic Platform with 24.1 % of the votes, which were transformed into 15 seats in the European Parliament. The following places were taken by the League of Polish Families (15.92 %, 10 seats), Law and Justice (12.67 %, 7 seats) and Self-Defense of Poland (10.78 %, 6 seats). The election threshold was exceeded and won by seats: the coalition committee of the Democratic Left Alliance - Labour Union (9.35 %, 5 seats), the Freedom Union (7.33 %, 4 seats), Polish People's Party (6.34 %, 4 seats) and Social Democracy of Poland (5.33 %, 3 seats). Only 20.87 % of the whole population eligible to vote took part in these particular elections.

The spatial distribution of the election results shows the unique, as for the period after 2000, fragmentation of the Polish political scene during the 2004 elections to the European Parliament. Considering the regional differentiation, attention should be paid to the results of the League of Polish Families, which was successful in the former Galicia and on the border of Mazovia and Podlasie. Self-Defence of Poland achieved significant influence in almost all rural areas of Poland. In the area of Central Poland, the second popular group - the Polish People's Party - was also significant. The Civic Platform was victorious mainly in Silesia and in the western and northern provinces, especially in the large cities of Wroclaw, Poznan, Szczecin, Olsztyn and the Tri-City and their vicinities. Law and Justice, on the other hand, was victorious in various other places in Poland, including Warsaw and its vicinity, and Rzeszow and its vicinity. In very few communes, also dispersed across the country, Union of Freedom, Social Democracy of Poland and Democratic Left Alliance - Labour Union were successful. There were also municipalities where groups that did not finally enter the European Parliament won.

However, the Civic Platform enjoyed great support in areas inhabited by other national and ethnic minorities. It won in most “Ukrainian” municipalities (Lelkowo, Budry, Pozezdrze, Kruklanki, Komancza). The Civic Platform also won in three “Ukrainian” communes in the north of the country (Banie Mazurskie, Bialy Bor, Pieni^zno).

Table 2 The 2004 elections to the European Parliament in selected municipalities with higher amount of people of Ukrainian descend

Source: Wybory do Parlamentu Europejskiego 2009: http://www.pe2004.pkw.gov.pl/, Data of the Parlgov project: http://www.parlgov.org/explore/pol/election/2004-06-13-ep/

Abbreviations: LPR - League of Polish Families, PO - Civic Platform, PSP - Polish People's Party, PiS - Law and Justice, SDP -Social Democracy of Poland, SLD-UP - Democratic Left Alliance - Labour Union, SDP- Self-Defence of Poland, UF - Union of Freedom, T - Turnout

The result of the 2004 elections to the European Parliament were apparently slightly more mixed. SelfDefence of Poland has won in five “Ukrainian” municipalities: Lelkowo, Budry, Kruklanki, Pozezdrze and Komancza, and in three communes, Bialy Bor, Pieni^zno and Banie Mazurskie, Civic Platform. In the Budry commune municipalities, Samoobrona won the most votes in the voivodship, 45.49 %. It is also worth paying attention to the groups that ranked second. In Bialy Bor, Pieni^zno and Banie Mazurskie, Samoobrona was placed after PO, and in Kruklanki, Lelkowo and Pozezdrze, after Self-Defence. The exceptions were the Budry municipality, where the League of Polish Families finished second surprisingly, and the Komancza municipality, where the SLD-UP coalition came second.

However, in the entire Subcarpathian Voivodeship won the elections to the European Parliament Law and Justice, in the Komancza municipality Self-Defense of Poland obtained the best result. In the Warmian and Mazurian voivodship, the results of Self-Defense and the League of Polish Families in the Lelkowo municipality were particularly outstanding. In the remaining “Ukrainian” communes, the party's results did not stand out from the voivodeship. The situation was similar in the commune of Bialy Bor in the West Pomeranian Voivodeship [Wybory do Parlamentu Europejskiego 2004].

Five years later, in June 2009, the second elections to the European Parliament were held. As a result of the increase in the number of European Union member states, the number of seats available to Poland decreased.

This time, Polish citizens chose 50 out of 736 MEPs. The elections were held in accordance with the 2004 ordinance. Election lists were submitted by 13 committees, one of which resigned after the ballot papers had been printed. Like four years earlier, no minority election committee appeared [Wojtaszczyk 2015].

As a result of the 2009 elections, only four election committees won seats in the European Parliament. The Civic Platform, which received 44.43 % of the votes, enjoyed the greatest support, obtaining 25 out of 50 Polish seats in the European Parliament. Law and Justice, second in line, with the support of 27.4 % eligible voters, gained 15 seats. The coalition committee of the Democratic Left Alliance - Labor Union came third with a result of 12.34 % and 7 seats. The Polish People's Party also joined the European Parliament (7.01 %, 3 seats). The voter turnout was slightly higher than in 2004 and amounted to 24.53 % [Wybory do Parlamentu Europejskiego 2014].

The voting results in 2009 were much less varied than in the first elections to the European Parliament.

In the eastern and south-eastern parts of the country, Law and Justice won in most municipalities. In the Masovian, Kuyavian-Pomeranian and Lodz voivodeships, Polish Peoples Party achieved a good result. In large cities, in the western and northern territories as well as in Silesia, clear domination of the Civic Platform was visible. Again, a very poor result was achieved by the SLD-UP committee, which won in individual municipalities. [Wojtaszczyk 2015].

This time, the Civic Platform won in the vast majority of municipalities where representatives of the mentioned communities live.

The results of the 2009 elections to the European Parliament in the area inhabited by Ukrainians, as in particular municipalities, were similar to the results of the 2007 elections to the Sejm (Lower Chamber of Polish Parliament). Everywhere, except for Lelkowo and Budry, the PO won. In these two communes, the PSL was successful, while the Civic Platform came second. Especially in the Budry municipality, the difference in votes between the two parties was small: PSL won 25.65 %, and PO 24.78 %. However, it is worth paying attention to the fact that in northern Poland the results in the “Ukrainian” communes did not differ significantly from the results in other communes. The situation in Subcarpathian voivodeship was different. In the Komancza municipality, the victorious Civic Platform won 61.33 % of the electoral vote, which was the second result in the voivodship. Law and Justice come second in this particular municipality with electoral support 13.84 %. The results of both parties in Komancza were significantly different from the results in most municipalities of the Subcarpathian voivodeship, where the support for these two parties was distributed in the opposite way. Even stronger polarization occurred in the Cisna commune. PO gained 69.46 % of support there, and PiS - 12.65 % [Wybory do Parlamentu Europejskiego 2009].

Table 3 The 2009 elections to the European Parliament in selected municipalities with higher amount of the people of Ukrainian descend