President (Poland)

President of the Republic of Poland
Jack of the President
Acting President Andrzej Duda since August 6, 2015
Official seat	Presidential palace
Term of office	5 years (re-election easily possible)
Creation of office	December 11, 1922
Last choice	July 12, 2020
Salutation	Mister President
Deputy	Sejm Marshal
website	www.prezydent.pl

The President of Poland ( Polish Prezydent Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej - German  "President of the Republic of Poland" ) is at the head of the executive branch . Andrzej Duda has been the acting president since August 6, 2015 .

Duties and powers

The powers of the President are set out in the current 1997 constitution in Chapter 5 (Articles 126 to 145).

By way of declaration, Article 126 declares the President of the State to be the highest state representative ( head of state ) and guarantor of the continuity of state power. He is therefore responsible for overseeing the application of the constitution, the independence and security of the state and the inviolability and indivisibility of the state's territory.

He appoints the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers . He is entitled to convene the Cabinet Council, d. H. to chair a meeting of the Council of Ministers.

According to Article 133, he represents the country externally and, by his signature, ratifies treaties with other states . On foreign policy he works with the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister.

In wartime, the President of the Republic is the Supreme Commander of the Polish Armed Forces , otherwise the Minister of Defense performs this task on his behalf in accordance with Articles 134 to 136.

The President alone is entitled to grant Polish citizenship . Likewise, waiver of these in accordance with Article 137 requires the consent of the President. He is also entitled to a pardon under Article 139.

Further competencies of the President are derived from Article 122 in Chapter 4 of the Constitution, which deals with the procedure for signing laws (in the formal sense). As a rule, the President signs the laws drawn up by the National Assembly , consisting of the Sejm and Senate , within 21 calendar days. According to Paragraphs 3 and 4, however, the President is empowered to submit laws that have been submitted to him to review the constitutionality to the Constitutional Courtforward and refuse to sign if it is found to be unconstitutional. If the President of the Republic does not make use of this right, he is free, in accordance with paragraph 5, to refuse the signature without giving reasons and to submit the law to the Sejm for a new copy (see right of veto ). In this case, a presidential majority of three fifths of the MPs present is required to override the veto.

Election and term of office

According to Article 127 of the Constitution, the President is directly elected by the people (general, equal, immediate and secret election). All Polish citizens who have reached the age of 35 on the first election day and who have parliamentary suffrage are eligible. You must also provide a list of 100,000 statements of support from Polish citizens who are eligible to vote. The election usually takes place 75 to 100 days before the end of the term of office of the incumbent President. If no candidate has the necessary majority of more than 50 percent of the votes cast on the first day of the election, a runoff election is heldproclaimed, which takes place two weeks after the first election day. The two candidates who received the most votes on the first day of the election are allowed to participate. The validity of the election is subject to review by the Supreme Court in accordance with Article 129 , with any citizen entitled to vote being entitled to appeal against the validity.

The term of office of the President is five years. It begins with the taking of the following oath of office to the National Assembly:

"Obejmując z woli Narodu urząd Prezydenta Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, uroczyście przysięgam, ZE dochowam wierności postanowieniom Konstytucji, będę strzegł niezłomnie godności Narodu, Niepodległości i bezpieczeństwa Państwa, a dobro Ojczyzny oraz pomyślność obywateli Béda dla mnie zawsze najwyższym nakazem"

“In accordance with the will of the people, I take up the post of President of the Republic of Poland and I solemnly swear that I will remain faithful to the provisions of the Constitution, that I will unyieldingly safeguard the dignity of the people, the independence and security of the state, and that the welfare of the Fatherland and the well-being of citizens will always be my highest duty. "

- Constitution of the Republic of Poland, Art. 130, Clause 2

The oath of office can be supplemented by a Christian-religious affirmation upon request:

"Tak mi dopomóż Bóg."

"So help me God."

- Constitution of the Republic of Poland, Art. 130, Clause 3

Under the current constitution, this affirmation was used by Lech Kaczyński , Bronisław Komorowski and Andrzej Duda , while Aleksander Kwaśniewski waived it.

A person can be elected to the office of President twice at most.

In the event that the President is prevented from attending (death, illness, resignation or removal), the Sejm Marshal performs his duties on an interim basis . Within 14 days of an early discharge, the latter must set a date for the new election, which is within a period of 60 days after the election order. However, if the Sejm Marshal is also unable to attend, the Senate Marshal will take over the official duties of the President.

Official residence, insignia and manners

The official residences of the President are the Presidential Palace and the Belvedere Palace in Warsaw . The traditional emblems are the Order of the White Eagle and the Grand Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta as well as the official seal and flag of the President.

Derived from Article 126 of the Constitution, the President has the first place in the precedent (before the Sejm Marshal, the Senate Marshal and the Prime Minister). The usual address is Panie Prezydencie (Mr President), a particularly solemn Panie Prezydencie Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej (Mr President of the Republic of Poland). So far only men have held the office.

Incumbent since 1989

Since 1989 there have been six incumbents, not counting acting presidents. Only one of the presidents was re-elected, one died in office. Two of the incumbents symbolically resigned from their party after their election, but in fact remained loyal to it in their official acts.

#	image	Surname	Term of office	Political party	comment
1.		Wojciech Jaruzelski (1923-2014)	1989-1990	PZPR independent from August 1989	Former General Wojciech Jaruzelski, who during the crisis in Poland in 1981 as chairman of the Polish United Workers' Party had been appointed and in 1985 the Office of the Council of State of the People's Republic of Poland held, was in the presidential election in Poland in 1989 as part of the Round-table discussions by Elected to a committee, but his term of office was shortened to one year as a result of the system change.
2.		Lech Wałęsa (* 1943)	1990-1995	AW "Solidarność"	The electrician Lech Wałęsa and former chairman of the free trade union Solidarność was one of the organizers of the system change in Poland in 1989 , from a real socialist to a democratic market economy state. In 1990 he was the first freely elected President of Poland, but was not re-elected in 1995.
3.		Aleksander Kwaśniewski (* 1954)	1995-2005	SLD	Aleksander Kwaśniewski, who had turned to a career in the Polish United Workers' Party after dropping out of business studies, was youth minister under Prime Minister Zbigniew Messner during Real Socialism . During the fall of the Wall in Poland , he took part in the round table talks on the government side, but after 1989 he made the transition from a regime official to a democrat. In 2000 he was re-elected.
4th		Lech Kaczyński (1949-2010)	2005-2010	PiS formally independent from June 2006	After the system change in 1989 , the lawyer Lech Kaczyński was a senator , justice minister under Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek , mayor of Warsaw and first chairman of the Law and Justice party, which he co-founded in 2001 . He died in office in the Smolensk plane crash .
5.		Bronisław Komorowski (* 1952)	2010-2015	PO	The trained historian Bronisław Komorowski, active in his youth during the student protests against the Polish United Workers' Party, was Minister of Defense under Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek and Sejm Marshal before he took office as President . In 2015 he was not re-elected.
6th		Andrzej Duda (* 1972)	2015- officiating	PiS formally independent from May 2015	The lawyer Andrzej Duda was a simple member of the Sejm before his tenure as President and a member of the European Parliament from 2014 to 2015 , after having previously worked in an advisory capacity for Lech Kaczyński and his brother Jarosław .

See also

• List of Presidents of Poland

Web links

Commons : President of the Republic (Poland)  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Official website of the Polish President (Polish, English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Słownik procedur parlamentarnych , Kancelaria Sejmu, ISBN 83-909381-0-3 , p. 389
2. ↑ ^{a b} Article 127 paragraph 2
3. ^ Non- party as a result of the self-dissolution of the Polish United Workers' Party in the course of the system change.

predecessor	Office	successor
Chairman of the State Council of the People's Republic of Poland	Presidential cycle (Poland) since 1989	-