„Chcesz mieć lipę senatora – oddaj głos na profesora”. Wybory 4 czerwca 1989 roku z perspektywy Wojewódzkiego Urzędu Spraw Wewnętrznych w Sieradzu

As a result of the compromise reached between the authorities of communist Poland and that part of opposition forces grouped around Lech Wałęsa, on 4 June 1989 the fi rst partially free parliamentary elections in over forty years were to take place in Poland. The governing camp decided on the term ‘contract elections’, likely assuming that the final results could not lead to any substantive changes on the Polish political scene. A favorable result for the so-called united left parties was certainly to be, above all, guaranteed by the ‘oversight’ of the electoral process entrusted to the Interior Ministry (MSW). The Sieradz Voivodship was not considered a bastion of the opposition; however, this did not mean that the local Security Services decided to ignore the election and the preceding campaign. Preserved in the collections of the Łódź IPN, the ‘Senator’ Case fi le shows the main areas of interest and the operational methods employed by the regional branch of the security service (WUSW), in Sieradz, ahead of the election campaign that was heating up in the region. However, the question whether the structures of the political police of communist Poland could have been prepared to deal with the phenomenon of even partially democratic elections remains open.