Since Walesa is in the news over wanting to help Hong Kong, another cool parallel with Poland is the carefully negotiated elections in 1989, which accelerated the collapse of the government even though they were designed with a built-in majority for the communistshttps://twitter.com/suilee/status/1199159569244536832 …
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The elections were for a newly-created Senate, where every seat was contested, and for the lower house of parliament (the Sejm), where 299 seats were guaranteed to the communist party, and 161 were open for a genuine election. Walesa's coalition won all 161, and 99 senate seats
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What was remarkable about this election is that EVERYONE except the ruling party knew this would be the outcome. The first chance for a semi-free vote since WWII would be a total repudiation of the illegitimate government. But the government was genuinely shocked!
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They did not expect to win, of course, but they expected a less unequivocal result. Very soon after this election, events accelerated and it became untenable for the communists to stay in power. All their careful negotiations to preserve their rule collapsed around them.
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Again, you can't over-analogize with Hong Kong. Poland and the rest of the eastern bloc escaped communism in large part because Gorbachev indicated that he would not intervene militarily. And even Gorbachev used military force when a "part of the USSR" (the Baltics) seceded
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But the lesson is, elections are extremely powerful expressions of popular will, and authoritarians who try to game them without recent experience of managing or manipulating fair elections tend to get badly burned.
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I'd love to hear other examples of authoritarian systems holding a genuinely free election and getting smoked because they misgauged their popularity
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Replying to @Dorothy410berry
That was a regular election, one held every six years. What am I missing?
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Replying to @Pinboard
I just meant it was an election result that the powers that were did not see coming, won democratically, if not by a majority
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I see. I'm asking about something a little different, when a repressive unelected government allows a fair election in hopes it will thereby gain some legitimacy, with safeguards in place to make sure it can't get voted out, and badly miscalculates.
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