Local government in Poland
In the time after World War II, Polish local administration was centralised and mayors and other administrators were appointed from Warsaw. The change of system in 1989 saw a revolution with the reintroduction of local councils and local self-government, but it took many years for people to start voting in larger numbers.
In 1989, they were relatively small entities, but 10 years later – in 1999 – the number of regions was reduced and powiatas – an association of several municipalities – were introduced. The citizens didn’t care much about the local government stuff, which they either felt was irrelevant, or they felt – not without reason – that it was mostly about distributing money and favours to those close to power. In 1999, unemployment was extremely high in Poland and connections were needed even to get a cleaning job at the local school.
The merger of regions was symbolic in nature; it was all about streamlining and transparency. At the same time, someone came up with a brilliant idea – if you had direct elections for mayors, you could create an interest in municipal elections. No sooner said than done – modelled after the presidential election, two rounds of voting were held, as 50.00001% of the votes cast were required to become mayor. The local city king was born.
The organisation
The basic unit of government in Poland consists of the municipality (gmina). In rural municipalities the mayor is called “wójt”, in urban municipalities they are called “burmistrz” (mayor), and in some larger municipalities they are called “Przydent miasta” (city president). However, they are all city kings. Mayors must liaise with the local municipal council (rural municipalities) or city council (cities), which approves key decisions.
In smaller municipalities, villages will often have a “sołtys”, an unpaid carer who looks after the needs of the village. Larger cities may have “Rada dzielnica” (neighbourhood council) or “rada osiedla” (housing area council), which represent local needs to the municipality. There are a total of 2,477 municipalities in Poland. Warsaw has a special law of self government and consists of a capital city administration, which includes 11 municipalities.
Of the just under 2,500 municipalities, the majority are rural municipalities without actual cities. Over 80% of municipalities have less than 20,000 inhabitants, but there are also plenty of municipalities with less than 5,000 inhabitants.
Powiat
The powiat is made up of a number of municipalities, and may translate to county or district, but often I simply call it “powiat”. Their task is limited, but they take on tasks that small municipalities can’t manage on their own. In larger cities, the municipality and the powiat are merged. There are 314 powiats in Poland and 66 municipalities that are also powiats.
The powiat is governed by a powiat council that elects a “starosta”, which, for lack of a better term, I’ll translate to “powiat mayor”.
Województwo (province)
Województwo is normally called a “province” in English. There are 16 provinces in Poland, giving an average size of 2.4 million inhabitants.
A województwo is governed by the sejmik (small sejm or local parliament), which elects a marszałek (marshal) as its leader, a prestigious old Polish title.
The function of the state at local level
In addition to a government in Warsaw that provides the military, taxes, police and judiciary, which are organised into independent units that don’t necessarily coincide with the municipalities, the state also has a number of practical tasks with the citizens. Some of the state’s tasks are administered by the municipalities as so-called “assigned tasks”, for which the municipalities receive payment.
However, a large part of state administration is carried out at the provincial level. Here, the state has a “wojewoda”, who is the Council of Ministers’ representative in the province. He is probably best translated as a provincial governor, and will be replaced when a new government comes in.
Management structure
Local government – both state and autonomous – is highly politicised and few decisions are made by non-political administrators. Mayors often have several deputy mayors who are grateful to the mayor for their position. The same, of course, applies to provincial governors.
What are they doing?
The municipality
The most important entity is probably the municipality, which is the citizens’ service organisation. Here, the municipality adopts a local urban development plan and takes care of minor roads and nature conservation. They also have to keep the municipality’s property in good condition and provide fire services, which are often partially handled by volunteers.
The municipality usually also owns a number of limited companies that provide water supply, waste management, public transport, a municipal cemetery and other important tasks that the municipality has chosen to take care of. The corporate structure makes these companies places where you can employ good friends for important positions, and it’s widely believed that this practice is extremely common.
Managing a municipality requires great negotiation skills. The various councillors have special interests, the mayor must live in harmony with the municipal council, and they must have a good relationship with the region, both the self-governing and the state, which comes with state funds that the municipality does not want to miss out on. It’s all something that goes down easier with some good food, a glass of vodka and … you don’t try to bring in a professional from outside for the well-paid positions when local people can do the job and keep things amicable.
One of the important tasks of the municipality is also the local schools, adult education and culture, including libraries. Furthermore, the municipality must look after the elderly and also has a certain duty to take care of vulnerable citizens.
The municipality also has some duties within healthcare, including providing medical centres in the municipality if there are not enough private providers. They also fulfil a number of optional tasks within preventive health. However, the municipality hardly pays for the healthcare system, which is predominantly financed through the health insurance funds (NFZ).
The municipality’s main source of revenue is a 39.34% share of the personal income taxes collected by the state from its citizens and 6.71% of the corporate taxes for companies registered in the municipality. The municipality also receives specific amounts from the state for performing tasks that are not actually the municipality’s responsibility. In addition, municipalities receive some small amounts in local taxes, including property taxes (which are really small), dog tax and other small things. The municipality also receives grants for specific projects from the state and from the EU, where many municipalities are so far below the EU economic average that they receive relatively large grants.
The powiat
The powiat is responsible for a number of tasks that can be difficult for smaller municipalities. This includes the employment service, the operation of upper secondary schools and certain specialised schools, as well as hospitals, although treatment is paid for by the health insurance fund. And then the powiat can take on some cultural tasks and run museums. The Powiat also performs some individual tasks for the state, such as collecting fees for “perpetual usufruct” (a renewable 100-year lease) and motor vehicle registration.
The powiats seem to be taking on more and more tasks, at least the budgets are growing, and it is possible to agree to let the powiats take on tasks that the municipalities would otherwise be responsible for. This is perhaps a logical development, especially in rural areas where some municipalities are actually very small.
The Powiat receive 10.25% of state revenue from personal income taxes and 1.4% of corporate taxes. In addition, they receive fees for tasks they perform for the state and municipality and, of course, grants for specific tasks from, for example, the EU.
The province (municipal self-government)
Provinces are often centred around a large city, which is the ‘capital’ of the province. There can be local differences and dislikes towards competing cities, and some provinces have two capitals, as if to devolve power. Sometimes it’s also a competition between two cities of roughly equal size.
The Mazowieckie province is by far the largest, and there has been talk of splitting it up several times so that Warsaw can be a municipality, powiat and province. It would also be smart in terms of EU-funding, because the revenues in Warsaw are so large that they pull the entire province up to a level where it no longer receives regional development funding from the EU.
The provinces have a lot to do with art and culture on a slightly larger scale, and you see, for example, large provincial libraries complementing municipal libraries. The province have tasks in a wide range of fields, but they are primarily support tasks, including higher education, social policy, environment, etc. Furthermore, the region spends money on promoting itself as a tourist area and attracting investment.
Every provinces operates a large provincial hospital, which of course can receive funding, but is predominantly financed by funds from the health insurance fund, which pays for the individual patient.
One of the province’s most important tasks is the regional roads, which include medium-sized roads between cities. The provinces are responsible for around 30,000 kilometres of road, while state roads comprise around 20,000 kilometres of road across the regions. Furthermore, subsidies are given for regional train transport.
The province receive 1.6% of state revenue from personal income taxes and 14.75% of corporate taxes, as well as a number of grants for specific projects. In addition, the provinces are often responsible for major construction projects and are therefore major recipients of EU funding.
The province (state administration)
The Wojewoda and his people must ensure that everything in the country is done in accordance with applicable laws and regulations. This can sometimes be relatively political, depending on how much the central government wants to exert its influence at a local level.
The Wojewoda also supervices various state organisations that take care of different tasks such as the environment, water quality and the like.
Furthermore, there is a huge provincial office where people can go to get passports, complain about speeding tickets, foreigners apply for residence permits, etc. In other words, everything in the state databases about the citizen is administered through the provincial office.
Other regional administration
In addition to the regional organisation, different institutions are represented with their own structures. These are the police, courts, tax authorities, health insurance and social security, which are administered by their respective ministries.
Who votes for who
National politics influence voting in local elections. Often people have a favourite party and they vote for them, regardless of the election. However, in local elections – and especially municipal elections – the situation is often somewhat different. You know the local candidates personally and you have personal wishes for local development. Mayoral elections often mobilise people to vote for a party that supports the mayoral candidate they have voted for.
As it stands in 2024 (and has done for the past several years), the former ruling party PiS and local PiS-friendly citizens’ committees are heavily in favour in small rural municipalities, with some competition from the PSL (Peasant Party), which is part of the current ruling coalition. In this way, Poland seems very much divided into two different worldviews, and this is most evident at a local level. In the cities, it is predominantly the opposite wing that holds the votes.
Local elections 7 and 21 April 2024
Regional elections are the ones that most closely follow national political trends.
This was the result for all regions together:
PiS ………………..34 per cent
Civic coalition ..31 per cent
Third way PSL ..14 per cent
Confederation.. 7 per cent
Left …………………6 per cent
Others ……………7 per cent
It can be seen that the incumbent government coalition received 51% of the votes in the regional elections, while the previous government together with the confederation received 41% of the votes.
As usual, the election divides Poland into East and West – or rather densely populated and sparsely populated areas.
The 5 eastern regions will be governed by PiS, while 11 regions in the west will be governed by the governing parties.
PiS is strongest in the Lubelski and Podkarpacki regions, where the former ruling party has 21 out of 33 seats in the regional council.
The governing coalition is strongest in Pomerania (Gdansk area), where it has 23 out of 33 seats.
Not much has changed since the parliamentary election in October 2023.
Another clear result if we look at mayors is that the governing coalition wins in the big cities, while PiS takes the smaller cities.
107 major cities elect a ‘city president’ as mayor.
Here, the focus on rural politics is usually greater and having a mayor in these cities is a matter of prestige for the larger parties – Warsaw has a special status as a kind of unofficial stepping stone to the post of President of Poland.
The result in these 107 cities was:
Civic Coalition – 42 city presidents
Left – 6 city presidents
PiS – 4 city presidents
Third way PSL- 3 city presidents
Confederation – 1 city president
No official political party affiliation – 52 city presidents
If you compare the results in the smaller municipalities, it is clear that PiS is weak in the cities.
The largest city with a PiS city president is Jastrzębie-Zdrój with 82,000 inhabitants.
In general, local mayoral candidates try to distance themselves from national politics, with 78.3% of mayors not officially belonging to a national political party, which doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t have some sort of affiliation.
Of the 21.7% of mayors who belong to a political party, the result is:
PiS – 573
Citizen Platform, PO – 294
Modernity – 5
PSL – 406
Third way – 49
Confederation -17
Left – 69
Here we notice a clear difference from the national result, especially if you look at the PSL, which is traditionally strong in local politics in rural municipalities and is often called the “Peasant Party”.
It’s also clear that PiS, as the absolute leader, is strong in smaller municipalities, but only has 4 leaders in the 107 largest municipalities.
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