Polish People's Party

The party was formed in 1895 in the Polish town of Rzeszow under the name Stronnictwo Ludowe (People's Party). The party changed its name in 1903 to what it's known as now. The party was led by Wincenty Witos and was quite successful, seating representatives in the Galician parliament before the turn of the 19th century. In the Second Polish Republic there were a few parties named PSL (Polish People's Party "Wyzwolenie", Polish People's Party "Piast", Polish People's Party "Left" and others) until they were removed by the Sanacja regime (see also People's Party).

During this time there were two parties using the term "Polish People's Party": Polish People's Party "Piast" and Polish People's Party "Wyzwolenie" (which were merged into People's Party with Stronnictwo Chłopskie). During World War II, PSL took part in forming the Polish government in exile.

Support for the PSL by region in 2007 Polish parliamentary election

After the war, Stanisław Mikołajczyk, a PSL leader who had been Prime Minister of the Polish government in exile, returned to communist-dominated Poland, where he joined the provisional government and rebuilt PSL. The party hoped to win the Yalta Conference-mandated elections and help establish a parliamentary system in Poland. The communists formed a rival peasant party allied with them. The 1947 parliamentary election was heavily rigged, with the communist-controlled bloc claiming to have won 80 percent of the vote. Many neutral observers believe the PSL would have won the election had it been conducted fairly.

Mikołajczyk was soon compelled to flee Poland for his life. The communists then forced the remains of Mikołajczyk's PSL to unite with the pro-communist People's Party to form the United People's Party. The ZSL was a governing partner in the ruling coalition.[22]

Around the time of the fall of communism several PSLs were recreated, including: Porozumienie Ludowe, Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe - Odrodzenie, and Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe (Wilanów faction). In 1989 most merged into one party and took part in forming the first postwar noncommunist government in Poland with the Solidarity grouping, and in 1990 changed its name to PSL.

It remained on the left of Polish politics in the 1990s, entering into coalitions with the postcommunist Democratic Left Alliance. However, in the 2001 parliamentary elections PSL received 9% of votes and formed a coalition with the Democratic Left Alliance, an alliance which later broke down. Since then PSL has moved towards more centrist and conservative policies.

The party ran in the 2004 European Parliament election as part of the European People's Party (EPP) and received 6% of the vote, giving it 4 of 54 Polish seats in the European Parliament. In the 2005 general election the party received 7% of votes, giving it 25 seats in the Sejm and 2 in the Senate. In the 2007 parliamentary elections the party placed fourth, with 8.93% of the vote and 31 out of 460 seats, and entered into a governing coalition with the victor, the centre-right conservative Civic Platform.

In European parliament elections PSL received 7.01% of votes in 2009.

In the 2011 national parliamentary election Polish People's Party received 8.36% votes which gave them 28 seats in the Sejm and 2 mandates in the Senate.[23] At the 2015 parliamentary election, the PSL dropped to 5.13 percent of the vote, just barely over the 5 percent threshold. With 16 seats, it was the smallest of the five factions in the Sejm.[24]

Since then PSL has lost even more support to PiS during the 2018 Polish local elections when they lost 87 seats and dropped to 12.07% unlike the 23.9% they got at the last local elections. After this, the party became junior partner in coalitions with Civic Coalition and SLD.

In 2019 European election PSL won 3 seats as a part of the European Coalition.[25]

For parliamentary elections in the same year PSL decided to create centrist and Christian-democratic coalition with or without Civic Platform named as Polish Coalition.[26] However, PO recreated Civic Coalition with Modern and small left-wing parties (although without major left-wing parties). Polish Coalition, apart from PSL, consists of Kukiz'15, Union of European Democrats and another liberal, catholic and regionalist organisations.[27][28][29] This coalition resulted in election of 30 members. Majority of them (20) were members of PSL.

The Party's traditional support base consisted of farmers, peasants and rural voters. Voters are generally more social conservative than voters of Civic Platform. Regionally, it has more support in western parts of country. The party has less support in larger cities and mining areas of the Silesian Voivodeship.

In the 2010s the party started to lose support between rural voters (especially in southeast of Poland). In 2019 election PSL gained surprisingly significant support in cities and won mandates (e. g. in Warsaw and Wrocław)[32].