Senate Pact 2023
The Senate Pact 2023 is an electoral alliance among the Civic Coalition, the New Left, the Polish People's Party and Poland 2050 for the 2023 Polish Senate election. The accord was agreed on 28 February 2023 by party representatives Marcin Kierwiński, Dariusz Wieczorek, Piotr Zgorzelski and Jacek Bury.
The agreement assumed close cooperation regarding the conduct of the election campaign; in each electoral district for the Senate of Poland, the constituent parties backed one common candidate. Candidates recommended by parties to the agreement and political parties cooperating had the exclusive right to use the official logo of the coalition.
To implement the agreement, an organizational team was established, whose work is managed by a representative of Yes! For Poland–Civic Coalition Senator Zygmunt Frankiewicz. The team's task is to divide the electoral districts into individual parties to the agreement, prepare proposals for candidates for Senators of the Republic of Poland and develop a concept for conducting an election campaign. The first informal Senate pact was concluded before the parliamentary elections in 2019.
The Senate Pact 2023 was to also include the German Minority Electoral Committee, a political party representing the interests of German minority in Poland, located in Upper Silesia. However, the party refused to join the pact, stating that the program of the parties forming the Senate Pact 2023 was not satisfactory. In response, the New Left accused the German party of increasing the likelihood of Law and Justice victory. Despite refusing to join the pact, locally the German Minority Electoral Committee dropped out and endorsed Senate Pact 2023 candidates as long as they pledged to "actively expand regional self-government, develop the integration of the European community and work towards restoring German as a national minority language".
The alliance won 66 seats out of 100 in the 11th term of the Senate which will sit from 2023 to 2027.
By-elections
Since 2023, there have been two Senate by-elections; on 21 July 2024, a by-election was held in constituency 13 to fill the seat of Krzysztof Kukucki from New Left who was elected mayor of Włocławek in the 2024 local elections. The Senate Pact 2023 nominated of New Left, who successfully retained the seat.Another by-election was held on 16 March 2025 in constituency 33 to fill the seat of Bogdan Klich of Civic Coalition, who resigned from office to assume a diplomatic post. The Senate Pact nominated Monika Piątkowska of Civic Coalition to hold the seat; however, a part of the pact, Poland 2050, refused to endorse her. Piątkowska retained the seat, although by a significantly lower margin. Given the lack of support from Poland 2050, challenge from a left-wing party Razem, and Piątkowska's underperformance, Onet described the by-election as a "bittersweet victory" for the Civic Coalition.
Ideology
The Senate Pact 2023 is considered to consist of left-wing, centrist, and right-wing parties. It has been described as liberal by the Sustainable Governance Indicators. The CEC group described the Senate Pact as a "far more politically diverse group" than any other alliances that contested Senate elections in Poland. According to Polish political scientist Bartosz Rydliński, the Senate Pact 2023 was created under three general ideological positions - defending liberal democracy in Poland, restoring the independence of the judiciary, and maintaining Poland's presence in the European Union.Rydliński noted that regarding "tax issues, social policy, women’s rights, LGBT+ rights, or the relationship between the state and church, it would be challenging, if not impossible, to find common ground", given the diversity of views amongst the member parties of the Senate Pact. He described the cooperation in Senate Pact as "characterised by understandable distrust". Nasz Dziennik wrote that the Senate Pact had "a single-point program — namely, to remove PiS from power". While led by the dominant Civic Coalition, the Senate Pact rendered the Civic Coalition "far more dependent on its coalition partners in the Senate than expected". Krytyka Polityczna wrote that the pact offered generous terms to left-leaning parties and candidates.
Despite having a broad goal of opposing Law and Justice, the Senate Pact did not manage to achieve unity of the PiS opposition in all constituencies, and faced challenges from the left, centre, and right. The left-wing Democratic Left Association declared that the Pact did not allow democratic negotiation of places in the candidates lists and fielded separate candidates. The far-right Confederation Liberty and Independence was the only major opposition party to be excluded from the Pact, and fielded separate candidates in half of constituencies. Lastly, several candidates from Poland 2050 decided to breach the alliance and run alone, despite their party being a member of the pact. Several independent candidates refused to join the Senate Pact; the German Minority Electoral Committee also refused to join, but endorsed individual SP2023 candidates.