| Country: | Poland |
| Flag Year: | 1919 |
| Type: | legislative |
| Previous Election: | 1919 Polish parliamentary election |
| Previous Year: | 1919 |
| Next Election: | 1928 Polish parliamentary election |
| Next Year: | 1928 |
| Seats For Election: | All 444 seats in the Sejm |
| Election Date: | (Sejm) (Senat) |
| Leader Since1: | November 1920 |
| Party1: | ChZJN |
| Color1: | 000000 |
| Last Election1: | 140 |
| Seats1: | 163 |
| Seat Change1: | 23 |
| Popular Vote1: | 2,551,582 |
| Percentage1: | 29.1% |
| Leader2: | Yitzhak Gruenbaum |
| Leader Since2: | 1922 |
| Party2: | Bloc of National Minorities |
| Last Election2: | – |
| Seats2: | 66 |
| Seat Change2: | New |
| Popular Vote2: | 1,398,250 |
| Percentage2: | 16.0% |
| Leader3: | Wincenty Witos |
| Leader Since3: | 1 December 1918 |
| Party3: | Polish People's Party "Piast" (1913–1931) |
| Last Election3: | 46 |
| Seats3: | 70 |
| Seat Change3: | 24 |
| Popular Vote3: | 1,153,397 |
| Percentage3: | 13.2% |
| Leader4: | Stanisław Thugutt |
| Leader Since4: | 1921 |
| Party4: | Polish People's Party "Wyzwolenie" |
| Last Election4: | 59 |
| Seats4: | 49 |
| Seat Change4: | 10 |
| Popular Vote4: | 963,385 |
| Percentage4: | 11.0% |
| Leader5: | Ignacy Daszyński |
| Leader Since5: | 1921 |
| Party5: | Polish Socialist Party |
| Color5: | FF0000 |
| Last Election5: | 35 |
| Seats5: | 41 |
| Seat Change5: | 6 |
| Popular Vote5: | 906,537 |
| Percentage5: | 10.3% |
| Leader6: | Jan Stanisław Jankowski |
| Leader Since6: | 1920 |
| Party6: | National Workers' Party |
| Last Election6: | 32 |
| Seats6: | 18 |
| Seat Change6: | 14 |
| Popular Vote6: | 473,676 |
| Percentage6: | 5.4% |
| Prime Minister | |
| Before Election: | Julian Nowak |
| Before Party: | Party of the National Right |
| After Election: | Władysław Sikorski |
| After Party: | Independent politician |
Parliamentary elections were held in Poland on 5 November 1922, with Senate elections held a week later on 12 November.[1] The elections were governed by the March Constitution of Poland, and saw the Christian Union of National Unity coalition emerge as the largest bloc in the Sejm with 163 of the 444 seats.
The resulting coalitions were unstable, and the situation - difficult from the start, with assassination of Polish president Gabriel Narutowicz in December shortly after the elections - culminated in 1926 with the May Coup.
According to Kopstein and Wittenberg, 39% of the majority Catholic population voted for right-wing parties, 29% for non-revolutionary left-wing parties and 25% for centrist parties. The other ethnoreligious groups, including Uniates, Jews and Orthodox Christians voted largely for parties representing minority groups.[2]
Some regional differences were observed; in western Poland, 9% of the Catholic vote went to minority interest parties, which has been attributed in part to German Catholic voting, but in the east, only 1% did. Ethnic Polish support for the right wing was stronger in the east of the country, where 40% voted for right-wing parties, as opposed to the south where 16% did. No detectable regional variation existed among Jews.[3] The lack of support for the center and right among the major minorities (Jews, Ukrainians and Belarusians) was attributed to ethnic polarisation that was exacerbated by discrimination and chauvinism from Polish officials.[4] Despite the success of minority parties, parties describing themselves as "Polish" refused to form a government with minority parties, and there was not one non-ethnic Polish cabinet member in the interwar period, though interethnic cooperation could still be seen in Ukrainian and Belarusian support for the Sikorski government.[3]
| Estimates of voting patterns by ethnoreligious groups | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Religion | Communists | Nonrevolutionary left | Minority interest parties | Center | Right-wing | Overall share (1921 census) | |
| Catholic | 2% | 29% | 4% | 25% | 39% | 64% | |
| Uniate | 3% | 2% | 77% | 1% | 5% | 12% | |
| Orthodox Christian | 8% | 37% | 66% | 1% | 1% | 10% | |
| Jewish | 4% | 18% | 65% | 2% | 4% | 11% | |
| Overall share (1921 census) | 2% | 16% | 24% | 25% | 34% | ||