WARSAW — Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk suffered a major setback on Sunday as voters in Kraków overwhelmingly backed a right-wing campaign to remove liberal Mayor Aleksander Miszalski — a result that could inspire similar efforts elsewhere in Poland.
Miszalski, a Civic Coalition politician and the head of the party’s regional office, was elected in 2024 on an agenda that centered on green urban policies similar to those enacted by Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski.
Noting growing discontent over planned environmental restrictions and rising parking fees, earlier this year the opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party and the far-right Confederation launched a grassroots campaign and collected more than 130,000 signatures to recall the mayor, whom they characterized as an out-of-touch, elite technocrat.
Nearly 30 percent of eligible voters took part in Sunday’s referendum, which had a 26.98 percent validity threshold. Of those who voted, 97.93 percent backed removing the mayor, while just under 2.1 percent opposed it. In a post on X, Miszalski accepted the results, emphasizing “local democracy is precisely about residents having the final say.”
“Not everything was achieved as I had intended,” he added. “I also know that some decisions, and the emotions surrounding them, caused many residents to lose trust in me.”
The referendum results represent a major victory for PiS and Confederation, who are casting the recall in Kraków as the first in a broader campaign to challenge liberal urban governments. Tusk’s Civic Coalition party controls the capital city Warsaw and the majority of regional capitals, and by taking aim at the local administrations, Poland’s right-wing sees a way of challenging the prime minister’s rule at the national level.
In a rare post on X, PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński hailed the results in Kraków, which he said were “only the beginning.”
“This government is destroying and questioning everything democratic,” he wrote. “That is why the people of Kraków showed them the red card. I congratulate all Kraków residents who refused to be intimidated and are fighting for their city.”
A pre-referendum survey by pollster OGB found that more than 28 percent of voters cited the city’s Low Emissions Zone (LEZ) — a system introduced by Miszalski’s center-left predecessor Jacek Majchrowski, to limit polluting vehicles access to Kraków — as their top grievance. Even though Kraków’s residents are exempt from the zone’s rules, campaigners succeeded in presenting the scheme as an undue burden on “ordinary” citizens.
The political harnessing of LEZ anger in Kraków reflects a broader European trend. In 2019 Madrid’s current center-right mayor, José Luis Martínez Almeida, succeeded in ousting his center-left predecessor, Manuela Carmena, by promising to eliminate an LEZ that his government ultimately kept. Fury over Good Move, a collection of measures to reduce car traffic in residential areas and build new bike lanes, similarly led to huge losses for the Greens and center-left parties in Brussels 2024.
More than 14 percent of surveyed voters also expressed frustration with Miszalski’s perceived stacking of municipal posts with political cronies. The mayor systematically rejected those allegations, insisting the appointments were based on qualifications.
Although voters indicated they were also displeased by Kraków’s debt, which is the highest among Polish cities, they ultimately focused their anger on the mayor. Electors had the option of dismissing the entire city council, in which Civic Coalition holds a majority of seats, but turnout in that ballot fell short of the 30.59 percent threshold required for the result to be valid.
The city will now be managed by an interim commissioner before a new mayoral vote, which must happen in three months’ time.
Poland’s right-wing topples Kraków’s liberal mayor in fresh blow to Tusk
Source: Viral Showbiz Pinay
0 Comments