Donald Tusk during a joint press conference with Hungary's Prime Minister at the garden of the Prime Minister's residency in Warsaw, Poland, on May 20, 2026.Wojtek Radwanski/ AFP via Getty Images

Poland’s right-wing topples Kraków’s liberal mayor in fresh blow to Tusk – POLITICO

by · POLITICO

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.