The day dawned gray in Siedlce. The city of about 77,000 inhabitants is only about 100 kilometers east of Warsaw, but the distance from the liberal capital seems immense. This Sunday, defying the Polish axiom that ensures that the ultra-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) has no chance of governing in the cities, Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s party managed to recover this former bastion of its own and show that it resists.
Siedlce seemed like PiS’s only chance to achieve a medium-sized city, but election night brought one more surprise for the ultra-conservatives, who also won Jastrzebie-Zdrój, with about 90,000 inhabitants, in the south of the country.
Except for those cases, which confirm that PiS fails to convince in cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants, the winner this Sunday was the center-right party of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, which consolidated its municipal power. The leader was celebrating victories as the exit polls and the partial results in the 748 mayoralties that had been pending in the first round became known. Then Civic Coalition (KO) swept some of the main capitals, such as Warsaw and Gdansk.
In the large cities that were decided this Sunday, such as Krakow, Wrocław and Rzeszów, the KO candidates, or independents with the support of that party, won. “Poznan, Krakow, Wroclaw, Rzeszów, Torun, Zabrze, Konin, Kielce, Jelenia Góra, Zielona Góra, Radom, Elblag… I think we won the second round. We will not stop! ”Tweeted Tusk, who continued adding messages until midnight, when he had already won 67 municipalities. In the case of Krakow, the difference between the two contenders was close, as the political scientist at the University of Warsaw, Bartlomiej Biskup, who had predicted a few days before in his office, had predicted a complicated duel.
“It has not been an easy campaign for the Civic Coalition. They were surprised because they expected to come in first place,” he explained about the results of the Tusk party in the regional elections on April 7, when the first round of the municipal elections was also held. The formation managed to catch its breath this Sunday, but two weeks ago it hoped to give the overtaking to the ultraconservatives of PiS, and that did not happen. “People don’t change their minds that quickly and very few months have passed since (the parliamentary elections in) October,” noted Biskup.
The final duel in Siedlce was between the mayor, Andrzej Sitnik, an independent supported by KO who obtained 46.75% of the votes, and Tomasz Hapunowicz, the PiS candidate, who won with 53.25%. This Sunday their faces decorated the streets of a town where no great aesthetic aspirations or efforts at urban coherence are observed.
The center is made up of blocks of varying heights surrounded by gardens, many painted in pastel colors that already accumulate a grayish patina. On Osiedlowa Street, between trees and residential buildings, there is a school. There she voted around 12:30 with her son, Katarzyna, 48, a secretary at a hospital whose last name she preferred not to give. She chose Mayor Sitnik. “I prefer KO because they are more liberal,” she explained at the exit, although she recognized that Hapunowicz had more possibilities.
Irritated, the woman denounced that the Law and Justice candidate had not included his logo on his electoral posters. “A lot of older people, people I’ve talked to, didn’t know I was from PiS.” In local elections, voters value the candidate’s honesty (95%) and knowledge of people’s problems (85%), far above political affiliation (66%), according to the CBOS, the research center Polish sociological studies. Hapunowicz preferred that the animosity of some towards her party not jinx the elections.
PiS usually has a difficult time in the second rounds in the cities, because voters, as happened in 2018, usually unite to elect anyone but their candidate. The sociologist Jaroslaw Flis pointed out in Gazeta Wyborcza that on this occasion, being out of the national government since December, “it probably won’t be as scary as it was then.” Although he recalled that in the first round, in which 1,728 mayors were elected, the ultra-conservatives worsened their results, especially in the cities. This Sunday, 60 towns in the running fell into that category, including Siedlce.
At the entrance to the Sagrada Familia Catholic secondary school, located in front of the cathedral, the situation became lively mid-morning, when several neighbors gathered to vote in the gigantic ballot box. Rafal Toczko, a supervisor at a private company, flagged Hapunowicz’s name “because he is a hard-working person.” The man, 36 years old, has a very low opinion of Donald Tusk’s Government: “he is a terrible mix and without any type of control.”
The mayor of Warsaw, Rafal Trzaskowski, who swept the first round, was supporting Sitnik a few days ago. “He is a great worker and he has a lot of experience in local government. He led Siedlce during the PiS mandate, which snatched 600 million zlotys (139 million euros) from the city,” said the KO leader.
Oskar Pajda, an 18-year-old high school student who voted for KO in October, disagreed yesterday: “He is not managing well; “He said that we had to save money and he has not made investments.” Slawek, a municipal employee who withholds his last name, defended the mayor’s management, but believed that the support he has received from KO could work against him. “In the previous elections he ran as an independent. In Siedlce people vote more for PiS, although they lost in 2018 because people were fed up with the enormous debt they created and that we still carry,” he explained in the deserted building where the mayor’s office is located.
In the elections on April 7, PiS won votes in seven regional assemblies, compared to nine for KO, a better result than the polls predicted. At the national level, the ultraconservatives were also the first force, with 34%, slightly below the October parliamentary elections. Although the result would not have been enough for him to govern now, it served to demonstrate his strength and silence those who thought they were dead. The liberals could not declare the overwhelming victory they expected, but they celebrated that they continued to gain a majority.
PiS Fortress
“PiS remains a large organization, with a strong electorate,” according to the political scientist from the University of Warsaw. The main reason why he has sustained his support, Biskup believes, is that he toned down his tone and attacks, after the extremely toxic October campaign and a very turbulent transfer of power. Their voters are also more faithful and disciplined.
Turnout on April 7 was 51.9%, well below October’s record of over 74%. Biskup believes that there is political fatigue, in addition to some disappointment among groups such as young people and women due to the delay or lack of fulfillment of electoral promises. “It was not a red card, but it was a yellow card for the Government,” he said. This Sunday, the turnout at the polls was even lower than two weeks ago: 44.06%, almost eight points less than then. With his sights already set on the European elections in June, Tusk had tried to encourage voters. “We cannot afford low participation,” urged the prime minister with a message in X.