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Electoral behavior of citizens in 2010

The article presents the analysis of the socio-political context of the carried out project. It draws attention to the events of 2010 that have dynamised the political space, in particular, the Smolensk disaster of April 10, which changed the nature of political competition, not only by accelerating the date of the presidential elections, but mainly by depriving some of the par- ties of the natural candidates in the upcoming elections and leading politicians. This has left its mark on the presidential, but equally on the local elections.

The attitude of the Poles towards the events taking place after the Smoleńsk plane crash in view of declared political preferences

The plane crash in Smolensk on April 10th 2010, which entailed the death of 96 represen- tatives flying to commemorate the victims of Katyń, brought the spectre of deep mourning to the whole country. The death of so many people from political, cultural and military environ- ments triggered unexpected reserves of social solidarity. The article is an attempt to present reality after the Smolensk plane crash. Its aim is to verify a thesis that the plane crash was used for political purposes. The analysis of the research material is going to determine to what extent political preferences are a factor influencing the views of the people surveyed concerning the decision to transfer the memorial cross planted outside the presidential palace in Warsaw as well as to bury the presidential couple in Wawel cathedral in Kraków. The issues raised in the article are going to be examined in three areas: the presidential election, the parliamentary election, the regional election.

Political preferences and pre-election polls are interrelated. Analysis of the voice of socie- ty helps to plan rationally the future tasks and simultaneously analyze current problems, also social expectations. Although public opinion generally is perceived as acceptance or criticism of political action, but this survey and their analysis also points to a third state of indifference to politics. Often, the parties seek to reduce this third group and are communicating to a neutral or undecided voters, trying to enlarge the circle of its supporters. It is necessary to remember that public opinion is shaped by the information coming to its knowledge, and these may be subject of manipulation. It is believed that it is often manipulated by party leaders and the media. Conducive to this type of activity is the time of the election campaign, including a measure surveys of support for particular parties or candidates. Extre- mely important due to the influence of the media is the perception of fairness by the public. Analysis of the receipt of polls, assess the reliability and credibility of media sources is useful for specialists in PR and marketing franchise. The research allowed to extract some trends in the behavior of the electorate, which in view of their continuation can be very useful.

This part of the report discusses three questions, included in the questionnaire about electoral behavior during presidential and local elections in 2010. First question asks about the time, when the voter made his decision for which candidate he would vote for in the First round in the Presidential election. Second question is about the factors, that decide in choos- ing particular electoral committee in Local elections and third - about the problem of how big and stable is negative electorate of Polish political parties. As can be seen from presented data, majority of voters was sure of their political preferences long before the beginning of Presi- dential campaign and those, who made their decision during it, in most cases, in it's first phase. The mobility of Polish electorate is reduced, also because of the largeness and mutual pen- etration of negative electorate and effectiveness of political agitation is also limited. Because of that voters political preferences are relatively stable, despite the Smoleńsk Crash and in- creasingly intense competition of party elites.

After 1989, the Polish political scene clashed two traditions: individualism and commu- nity. They were a reflection of social trends and habits, whereas for the political parties beca- me the axis around which were decided the main dilemmas of the political system, economy and cultural sphere of the society. Dilemmas of reconciling individualism with community trends were consistent with the presence of Catholic values in society, traditions and political culture. Along with the consolidation of democracy in Poland, became the determinant of political views and atti- tudes, thereby affecting the socio-political divisions in Poland.

The research was aimed at answering two questions: which politicians' features, qualities and behaviours reinforce the civil support and which deliberative competences citizens have got. The respondents regardless of their political preferences pointed to the same behaviours of politicians occupying the most important state posts. These were: constitutional duties, spe- cial accountability for words and frequent speaking in public. The majority of the respon- dents said that a politician should be able to defend his opinion, effectively carry out his ideas and at same time he should listen to others' ideas and understand the problems of ordinary men. The majority of those polled restricted themselves to radio, TV, Internet and printed media in passive rather active way. They use the media rather as a source of political knowledge than an instrument of public deliberation. The research, concentrated on the communicative perspective of political power, showed that beliefs about the symbolism of power are shared by the majority of citizens regardless of their political views and choices.

Individual characteristics of voters and candidates assume greater importance in politi- cal discourse. Personality traits of voters become decisive for political choice. It is possible that people vote for candidates whose personality traits match their own traits. The main aim of the investigation was to test the relationship between voters' Machiavellianism and self-reported voting behavior in presidential and municipal elections in 2010, and between voters' Machiavellianism and voting preferences in national elections. The evidence confirms that Ma- chiavellianism is associated with voting and preferences for particular parties and candidates. There is a relationship between Machiavellianism and electorial participation.

The five factor model of personality, so called "Big Five" of Paul T. Costa, and Robert R. McCrae is a valuable tool for researchers of individual differences, as it assumes the existence of supracultural and suprademographic and structurally most general personality dimensions, allowing for full and comprehensive characterization. The subject of the article are two factors of the "Big Five" model - openness to experien- ce and agreeableness. Given their characteristics and the analysis described in the literature on the research subject, the author assumed that the political preferences of individuals with varying levels of the analyzed factors will vary also. There will also be a difference in their political behavior in terms of political activity - passivity. Diagnosis of openness to experience and agreeableness was conducted based on the NEO-FFI Personality Inventory of Paul T. Costa and Robert R. McCrae in the Polish adaptation of Bogdan Zawadzki, Jan Strelau, Piotr Szcze- panik, and Magdalena Sliwinska.

The article concerns the place of a leader In a party, their statutory competences and the vot- ers' evaluation of a party and its leader: is the present leader fulfilling their role in the expected way, would the leader change improve the voters' perception of the party, would they vote on the party if the present leader resigned. The leader position in a party is due to the respect which is given to the leader or to statute of the party. The research involves four biggest Polish Parties: Platformę Obywatelska RP, Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, Sojusz Lewicy demokratycznej and Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe. The statute analyze proves that from voters' point of view the more powerful becomes and more competences gets a leader whose party is more on the right side of the parliament. despite the fact that the voters do not realize the formal side of the leadership, their evaluation of the party is combined with the scale of a leader's competences set in a party statute. The vot- ers' evaluations of leaders have confirmed the leader's formal basis, although the evaluations were more in respect to the personality and charisma. the right side parties leaders are evaluated as strong personalities by their own voters. in the research the vorters evaluated the leaderships of their parties in a respectably positive way and did not want to change them.

One of the basic features of a democratic state are cyclical and competitive elections. They are an instrument through which the ideas of political representation are implemented, while being also a factor of creation of various authorities. The specificity of the distribution of power in a democracy is founded on the causative position of the general elections, as a form of granting the most important powers to the institutions of the political system. The present article text presents the results of research on the issue of the social significance of the various elections held in Poland and the factors influencing the perception of their importance. In the course of the study were revealed both the social preferences for the function of distribution of power and influence on the lives of citizens as the most important factors in the perception of the importance a given election. In the case of the least important elections, a key reason for such their perception was the location of the decision-making in other bodies of the political system than the one on which the opinions were expressed.

In Polish election, based on proportional rule, "half-opened" candidates list system is ap- plied. Polish electors vote for parties (committees), but select also candidates within lists. This solution gives possibility to research election competition on personally level. The material, which was collected through quantity research 'Political preferences 2010', shows that it is useful to research the determinants of election decisions of electorates voting for the most important Polish parties (PO, PiS, SLD and PSL). This article is connected with political behavior in Polish regional election (voivodeship sejmiks) in 2010. The main aim of this article is to answer the research question: Which of this aspects - parties or personas - have a bigger contribution to getting vote on concrete list of candidates?

Selected elements of election marketing as a determinant of the decision of the electora- te during the electoral campaign.Voter deciding who cast his vote, is determined of different factors. They include both acquired value systems, the impact of the environment in which the voter is located as well as the political state of the market at the time of the election. It comes to e.g general and local socio - economic situation. Knowing, how detrminanes are shaping up electoral decision not only allows policy-makers respond appropriately to the needs of the electorate but also to streamline the techniques and instruments for electoral marketing.

The present article aims to describe the relationship between political preferences of voters in different types of Polish elections (local, parliamentary, presidential) or of citizens inactive in the elections and their opinion on the integration of Poland with the EU as positive or negative. The results are based on a poll carried out at the end of 2010. The voters were asked about the political parties and groups they support in different elections (or specific persons

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