WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish voters are casting ballots Sunday to chose mayors in hundreds of cities and towns where no candidate won outright in the first round of the country’s local elections two weeks ago.
Mayors will be chosen in a total of 748 places, including in the cities of Kraków, Poznań, Rzeszów and Wrocław. Those are places where no single candidate won at least 50% of the vote during the first round of elections on April 7.
The local and regional elections are being viewed as a test for the pro-European Union government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk four months after it took power at the national level.
Tusk’s party did well in big cities including Warsaw, where his party’s candidate, Rafal Trzaskowski, easily won re-election as mayor two weeks ago.
However, Tusk failed to win a decisive victory overall. The main opposition party, Law and Justice, which held power at the national level from 2015-23, won a greater percentage of votes in the provincial assemblies.
Tusk’s socially liberal Civic Coalition has strong support in cities while Law and Justice has a stronger base in conservative rural areas, particularly in eastern Poland.
The Associated Press
