"Independent and self-governing". Former city mayors plan to establish a new party

• Many local government officials feel bitterness about the lack of appropriate decisions by the government aimed at improving the functioning of local governments. Hence the idea of ​​establishing a party that will take care of their interests.
• The initiative to establish the party was taken by the former presidents of Tychy, Gliwice and Nowa Sól, and current senators: Andrzej Dziuba, Zygmunt Frankiewicz and Wadim Tyszkiewicz.
• First of all, they want to submit to the senator a bill that would eliminate the two-term rule. The Union of Polish Cities has also recently submitted a motion to abolish it.

More than 220 local government officials met recently in Krakow for the annual General Assembly of the Union of Polish Cities. Traditionally, there was a lot of talk about problems in the functioning of local government units, and there was also some criticism of the government for the lack of important decisions that had been promised many times before.

- Currently, after the presidential elections, there is an ongoing discussion in the community whether the new president will veto laws or sign them. However, we in this room are aware that many issues that need to be "resolved" do not even come down to the issue of the president's veto or lack of a veto . Many actions can be carried out as part of the daily operational activities of the government and all of its agencies, also through daily good cooperation - pointed out Jacek Sutryk, the mayor of Wrocław and the president of the ZMP.

We were promised so much a year and a half ago. The fulfillment of many of these promises does not even require money, only decency

- noted the mayor of Czechowice-Dziedzice, Marian Błachut.

Senators to build political base. Three former presidents are initiators

Senator Andrzej Dziuba, a former long-time president of Tychy, who took part in the assembly, announced the beginning of building a political base in parliament for local governments as a result of disappointment and impatience with the lack of implementation of the promises made before the parliamentary elections in 2023. The idea is to create a political party that will be based on two pillars: local government and entrepreneurs.

Together with him, senators Zygmunt Frankiewicz - former president of Gliwice and Wadim Tyszkiewicz - former president of Nowa Sól will take up this initiative. First, in the coming weeks, they intend to establish a parliamentary club "Independent and self-governing". As the former mayor of Nowa Sól informed, there are already 5 senators willing to be members of the club, so 2 are still missing.

- We are constantly working on this and holding talks to implement this plan. The next step could be to create a new grouping, a middle party, which will not deal with ideological issues such as abortion or removing crosses, but with building a strong Poland - emphasized Wadim Tyszkiewicz in an interview with the "Money" portal. - We are creating a party for those fed up with the PO-PiS duopoly, which will be an alternative to brown Poland - he stated in an interview with "Rzeczpospolita".

At the next session of the Senate, they plan to submit a bill to abolish the two-term limit for commune heads, mayors and city presidents .

- We need to fix what PiS has ruined. Will there be political will from all the groups? It's hard for me to say, but we, as people coming from the local government community, will do everything to submit this bill. We did not consult it with political parties, because for us the matter is obvious - voting against this bill means supporting further violations of the Constitution and limiting passive voting rights - said Wadim Tyszkiewicz, quoted by "Money".

At the meeting in Kraków, the two-term mandate was also discussed at length. Some local government officials declared their readiness to take decisive, even radical, actions in defense of the passive and active electoral rights enshrined in the Constitution.

The General Assembly of the ZMP decided to submit a motion to the Sejm of the Republic of Poland to remove from the electoral law the provisions limiting the number of terms of office of commune heads, mayors and city presidents and to restore the legal status in force in this respect before 2018.