Warsaw mayor recall referendum set for 13 October
PR dla Zagranicy
Peter Gentle
21.08.2013 08:25
A referendum to recall Warsaw mayor Hanna Gronkiewicz Waltz will be held on 13 October, local election commission officials have announced.
Die Stadtpräsidentin mussste heute Nacht während einer außerordentlichen Sitzung des Warschauer Rates den Bürgern Rede und Antwort stehen. PAP/Rafał Guz
Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz: photo - PAP/Rafal Guz
Over 166,000 of some 230,000 signatures collected by a group campaigning against Gronkiewicz-Waltz, a former National Bank of Poland governor and current deputy leader of the Civic Platform party, were submitted to the local electoral commission.
For a referendum to be valid, three-fifths of the number of votes that were cast in the last local election in Warsaw, in 2010, are required.
This translated into 389,430 Varsovians having to take part in the referendum to make its result valid.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk, leader of Civic Platform, has told a press conference in Warsaw that an attempt to recall Gronkiewicz-Waltz from her post a year before new local government elections are scheduled is “politics of not the purest kind”.
In Tusk's view, the overall record of the mayor’s seven years in office is positive, even though, as he admitted, mistakes have not been avoided.
According to a group of local government organizations which lobbied for the referendum, the main complaints relating to Gronkiewicz-Waltz’s performance include the rising ticket prices for public transport and the slow construction of the second line of the underground Warsaw metro.
The move to recall Warsaw's mayor comes after campaigners in the northern city of Elblag successfully recalled their Civic Platform mayor in May this year. The resulting election was one by Law and Justice (PiS) candidate, Jerzy Wilk in July. (mk/pg)