According to the law, a referendum on the dismissal of the city mayor may be held at the request of at least 10 percent of the population. residents entitled to vote. In the case of Gliwice it was 12.7 thousand.
In his decision, the electoral commissioner informed that the referendum group had submitted an application for a referendum with 18.1 thousand votes. signatures. Of these, 11 thousand classified as correct, and 7.1 thousand as defective. The error rate was 39 percent.
"The statutory requirement for the validity of the application to order a referendum has not been met due to the lack of the required number of correctly submitted signatures," the electoral commissioner said.
They died on support lists
The most errors concerned a different or incomplete address (2.9 thousand), lack of voting rights in the appropriate area (2.1 thousand), multiple votes (729), incorrect, incomplete or illegible PESEL number (514) and the lack of a voter in the Central Register of Voters (330).
"It should be emphasized that as a result of the verification of PESEL numbers that do not appear in the Central Register of Voters, 245 PESEL numbers of deceased persons were revealed. (...) The number of persons who died before the date of granting alleged support on support cards indicates that signatures were collected in a manner inconsistent with the Act on local referendums. Among the disclosed data of signatures of deceased persons on the lists, the oldest-dated death dates back to 2010." – emphasized the electoral commissioner.
He announced that he would submit a report to the prosecutor's office on reasonable suspicion of committing a crime.
The initiators of the referendum announced that they would file a complaint against the decision of the electoral commissioner. They expressed their reservations already at the stage of signature verification. The electoral commissioner did not share them.
Katarzyna Kuczyńska-Budka: There was a political game going on
The mayor of Gliwice, Katarzyna Kuczyńska-Budka, assessed that there was a political game surrounding the referendum.
"I respect every resident who signed the referendum application. I also respect those who criticize my actions, but I also see how much good is happening in Gliwice and I believe that the residents also see it," she wrote.
Kuczyńska-Budka was elected to the office of mayor of Gliwice in 2024. She is the first woman in the city's history to hold this position. She is associated with the Civic Coalition. Previously, she was a city councilor. She worked, among others, in the offices of KO politicians, in positions related to communication and dialogue at the Marshal's Office of the Silesian Voivodeship, the Silesian Voivodeship Office and the City Hall in Zabrze, and also as a journalist.
Four referenda in the province Silesian
So far in the province Four referendums were held in Silesia, which ended with the dismissal of the city authorities. In 2026, the residents dismissed the mayor of Częstochowa, Krzysztof Matyjaszczyk, and the city council. In 2025, the residents recalled the mayor of Zabrze, Agnieszka Rupniewska. The turnout turned out to be too low to dismiss the city council. In 2009, the residents dismissed the mayor of Częstochowa, Tadeusz Wrona, and in 2012, the president of Bytom, Piotr Koj, and the city council.
In 2009, there were unsuccessful attempts to dismiss the mayor of Gliwice, Zygmunt Frankiewicz, and the city council, in 2012, the president of Ruda Śląska, Grażyna Dziedzic, and the city council, and in 2017, the president of Bytom, Damian Bartyla. In all three cases, the turnout during the referendum turned out to be too low.
