Independent \u0141ukasz Giba\u0142a won Sunday\u2019s snap mayoral election in Krak\u00f3w, Poland\u2019s second-largest city, setting up an Oct. 11 runoff against a candidate backed by Prime Minister Donald Tusk\u2019s Civic Coalition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Giba\u0142a finished 6.5 percentage points ahead of Tusk\u2019s preferred candidate, Senator Monika Pi\u0105tkowska, winning 36.4% against Pi\u0105tkowska\u2019s 29.9% \u2014 resulting in a much narrower gap than the exit poll\u2019s 12.2 points. No candidate took the 50% needed for outright victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The contest in Krak\u00f3w, pop. 800,000, was seen as a test of political strength for Civic Coalition ahead of the country\u2019s parliamentary elections a year from now. The runoff offers Tusk\u2019s camp a chance to regain the mayoralty after Civic Coalition Mayor Aleksander Miszalski was removed in a May referendum \u2014 a result Poland\u2019s right-wing opposition portrayed as a setback for the government.
For Giba\u0142a, Sunday\u2019s result gives him another shot at winning an office he came within a few thousand votes of securing in 2024, when he lost to Miszalski.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Miszalski subsequently faced mounting local opposition, including over Krak\u00f3w\u2019s clean-transport zone, before being recalled. Opposition parties, including Law and Justice (PiS) and parties on the far right, presented that result as evidence of weakening support for Tusk\u2019s government ahead of the fall 2027 general election. A similar referendum may be held in the capital Warsaw, targeting Mayor Rafa\u0142 Trzaskowski, also from Tusk\u2019s party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Earlier statements from parties opposed to Tusk\u2019s coalition indicated some could back Giba\u0142a against Pi\u0105tkowska in the second round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Turnout Sunday was 43.5%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Independent \u0141ukasz Giba\u0142a won Sunday\u2019s snap mayoral election in Krak\u00f3w, Poland\u2019s second-largest city, setting up an Oct. 11 runoff against a candidate backed by Prime Minister Donald Tusk\u2019s Civic Coalition. Giba\u0142a finished 6.5 percentage points ahead of Tusk\u2019s preferred candidate, Senator Monika Pi\u0105tkowska, winning 36.4% against Pi\u0105tkowska\u2019s 29.9% \u2014 resulting in a much narrower gap […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37135,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37134"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37136,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37134\/revisions\/37136"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}