The Evolution of Preferences among Voters: New Actors in the Party Systems of Eastern and Central Countries – is this Possible?

There is no doubt that 1989 is the turning point for a number of developments regarding the political systems in Central and Eastern Europe. Since then countries of the region have experienced a very significant qualitative and quantitative change in their politics. Changes in the political system and in the economy were also influencing the formation of party systems (Antoszewski 2003, 2009; Markowski 2002; Wojnicki 2004; White, Batt, Lewis 1998; Luther, Mueller-Rommel 2005). As the consolidation of party systems is increasing there is less space left for new political parties. In post-communist countries there still appear new political parties of the extreme right-wing as well as the extreme left-wing groups. There are four reasons for such a process. First, is the process of reforming the economies of these countries. Going from the centralized to a free market system creates severe side effects i.e. unemployment, inflation, and disproportion of property. This explains the growing popularity in these countries right-wing parties and extreme left. Secondly, such a phenomenon conducive of weakness of state authorities, incapable of solving - previously suppressed - conflicts. Thirdly, it is also the result of disillusionment with political elites, their inability to make the negotiations towards political consensus, dysfunctions of evolving party system in which politicians and voters have problems with self-identification, articulation and aggregation of social interests. Finally, the lack of consolidation of the party system may be “safety valve” for the evolving democratic system, new social cleavages, which inherently creates the possibility of the emergence of political alternatives. Despite the institutional barriers for new political parties in electoral systems, or systems of financing of political parties, voters decide to support the extreme groups i.e. ‘niche-parties’, as a sign of protest. The illustration of such processes are for example the last general elections in Poland in 2011.