Personalne aspekty rywalizacji wyborczej do Sejmu Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej. Analiza zjawiska „jeżdżenia na gapę” na wybranych przykładach
‘PERSONAL ASPECTS OF THE POLISH PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS’ THE ANALYSIS OF ‘FARE DODGERS’ PHENOMENON OF SELECTED CASES

Summary/Abstract: In the begging of 2011 the Polish media (especially television) have been interested in personal strategies of the most important parties, in the perspective of next parliamentary lection. However Polish authors haven’t researched personal aspects of parliamentary elections. In literatures of Sociology and Political Science does not have publications about effects of ‘half open list model’, which is exerted in all Polish proportional elections. One of the practical effect of this solution is getting members of Sejm by candidates, who got small support. They obtained place in more important chamber of Polish parliament, thanks to other candidates from the same lists. Therefore they were named by the author as ‘Fare dodger’. Among reasons of this effect can explain: big amount of members, who are elected in each of districts (Polish average is 11,22 and the biggest district is elected 19 members), the method of transformation votes on tickets (d’Hondt method, which is more profitable for big parties), the stabilization of Polish party system and personalization of parliamentary election. The author was concentrated on parliamentary election between 2001 and 2007 in three important districts – Warsaw, Cracow and Wroclaw. In this place ‘Fare dodgers’ case is more intensive. The aim of this analysis are found answers of two questions: Does ‘Fare dodger’ cases influence of fall a quality of parliamentary competition? and Does ‘Fare dodgers’ require modification or change the principle of parliamentary competition? The analysis of results of election in researching districts argue, that this phenomenon were connected with a few politicians. The most expressive subject is Paweł Poncyliusz case. He became a member of Sejm three else thanks to large amount of votes, which collected Jarosław Kaczyński (leader of Warsaw list and PiS President). We can explain also lot of similarly cases like Karol Karski (PiS), Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska (PO), Andrzej Halicki (PO) and Sławomir Piechota (PO). They are the evidence, that ‘Fare dodgers’ are not only passively members. They are people, who often present attitude their parties in media. It means that they have good position inside their parties. This results of research showed a few other cases. They were connected with candidates, who got more votes than ‘Fare dodgers’, but lost election. However on the basis of this cases can not talk about generally injustice such as in Polish European Parliamentary elections – especially in 2009. Therefore ‘Fare dodgers’ phenomenon does not influence on a quality of parliamentary competition and at the moment does not require modifications or changes the principle of parliamentary competition. If effects of this phenomenon will increase after parliamentary election in 2011, it will require the political and social discussion about changes the principle.

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