Kraków residents voted on Sunday, September 27, in an early election for mayor. The election followed a May referendum in which residents voted to remove Aleksander Miszalski of the Civic Coalition from office. Former deputy mayor Stanisław Kracik is running the city hall until the new mayor is sworn in.
Seven candidates contested the post: Michał Drewnicki of Law and Justice, Łukasz Gibała of Kraków for Residents, Daria Gosek-Popiołek of the Left, Michał Klimek of the Confederation of the Polish Crown, Aleksandra Owca of Razem, Monika Piątkowska of the Beyond Divisions list backed by the Civic Coalition and Polish People’s Party, and Sławomir Pietrzyk of Polish Social Democracy.
Jan Hoffman, the initiator of the recall referendum, withdrew on Wednesday. His name remained on ballots because they had already been printed. Municipal Election Commission chair Krzysztof Dyl said the rules do not provide for printing replacement ballots or removing a candidate in those circumstances. Votes cast for Hoffman were to be invalid.
Election-day reports described isolated breaches of campaign silence. Radio Kraków said an online campaign post for a candidate appeared about three hours after polling stations opened. In the Wola Justowska district, an elderly man tore up his ballot and discarded it. Police spokesman Piotr Szpiech told the Polish Press Agency that destroying election documents can carry a prison sentence of up to three years.
Polling stations were open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Ipsos estimated support at 36.6 percent for Gibała, 24.4 percent for Piątkowska, 19.6 percent for Drewnicki, 8.7 percent for Owca, 6.1 percent for Gosek-Popiołek, 4.2 percent for Klimek and 0.4 percent for Pietrzyk. The margin of error was estimated at two to three percentage points. A separate OGB poll shown by Polsat News put Gibała at 35.7 percent and Piątkowska at 28.4 percent.
More precise estimates were expected after protocols from a random sample covering 90 percent of polling stations were processed. Official results were expected between 3 and 4 a.m. With no candidate expected to exceed 50 percent, a runoff was scheduled for October 11. Preliminary polls indicated that Gibała and Piątkowska could face each other.