Results
An agreement ("Round Table Agreement") was signed on April 4, 1989. The most important demands, including those reflected in the April Novelization, were:
- Legalization of independent trade unions
- The introduction of the office of President (thereby annulling the power of the Communist party general secretary), who would be elected to a 6-year term
- The formation of a Senate
As a result, real political power was vested in a newly created bicameral legislature and in a president who would be the chief executive. Solidarność became a legitimate and legal political party. Free election to 35% of the seats in Sejm and an entirely free election to the Senate was assured.
The election of June 4, 1989 brought a landslide victory to Solidarność: 99% of all the seats in the Senate and all of the 35% possible seats in Sejm. Jaruzelski, whose name was the only one the Communist Party allowed on the ballot for the presidency, won by just one vote in the National Assembly. The 65–35 division was soon abolished as well, after the first truly free Sejm elections.
The Round Table sessions were of momentous importance to the future political developments in Poland. They paved the way to a free and democratic Poland as well as the final abolition of communism in Poland.
Read more about this topic: Polish Round Table Agreement
Famous quotes containing the word results:
“It amazes me when I hear any person prefer blindness to deafness. Such a person must have a terrible dread of being alone. Blindness makes one totally dependent on others, and deprives us of every satisfaction that results from light.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“Social improvement is attained more readily by a concern with the quality of results than with the purity of motives.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)
““The ideal reasoner,” he remarked, “would, when he had once been shown a single fact in all its bearings, deduce from it not only all the chain of events which led up to it but also all the results which would follow from it.””
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)