Impact of the Election Formula Change on the Structure of Competition in Local Legislatures: Lessons from Poland

Abstract

The aim of the article is to illustrate the political consequences of changes in the electoral system for elections to municipal councils in Poland introduced in 2018. For the purposes of the article, the following hypothesis is formulated: the changes in the electoral formula for elections to municipal councils with more than 20,000 inhabitants (excluding CCS), introduced under the 2018 amendment to the electoral law, alters the structure of political competition. The changes include: decreasing the advantage of the victorious election committee over its main rival (CI index), decreasing the number of relevant participants in the struggle for power (ENP index), broadening the extent to which the distribution of seats reflects the preferences of voters (PI index), and decreasing the ‘ownership’ of the most powerful electoral committee (AI index).