Małopolska. Unofficially: Łukasz Smółka is to be PiS candidate for voivodeship marshal. Kmita lost five times

On Thursday, the Małopolska regional assembly will try to elect a new board for the sixth time. It has failed five times already, despite the fact that elections Less than three months have passed and Law and Justice has enough votes to elect a new speaker on its own.

Read also: Kaczyński “has an idea” for the problem in Małopolska

At first, the only PiS candidate for marshal was a member of parliament from that party, former governor Łukasz Kmita. However, during subsequent sessions, the politician received 17, 13, 14, 16 and 13 votes, while he needed 20. PiS has 21 votes in the regional assembly.

At the last session on Tuesday, Kmita faced off against his party colleague, former governor Piotr Ćwik, whose candidacy was proposed by vice-marshal Józef Gawron. Ćwik received six votes of support.

Now, as we have learned unofficially, the party leadership wants to change the candidate for marshal. Instead of Łukasz Kmita, it would be Łukasz Smółka, the current vice-marshal of the province.

– Yesterday, President Kaczyński made the decision on his own that Smółka should run. However, talks are underway about various options. Several people even wanted to go to the opposition and it is not known how they will behave in the next votes – tells us one of the PiS activists from Małopolska.

As PiS is still boiling in the Małopolska region, it is not known whether Smółka's candidacy will be announced during Thursday's session of the regional assembly. In addition, it is possible that if the current vice-marshal becomes a candidate, replacing Łukasz Kmita, who has lost five times, the role of “rebels” will be taken over by a group of councilors loyal to To Ryszard Terleckiin conflict with Marshal Witold Kozłowski. – There is a fear that Terlecki will use his people to block the election of Smółka as Marshal – the Law and Justice activist tells us.

The announcement of Piotr Ćwik's candidacy during the last session aroused indignation among the deputy head of the PiS parliamentary club, Ryszard Terlecki, and Małopolska councilor Barbara Nowak. The conference room became an arena for open combat between PiS activists; Terlecki then called PiS deputy marshal Józef Gawron a “troll”accusing him of “only listening to traitors.”

However, PiS politicians asked by PAP claimed that replacing Kmita with another candidate is not being considered. – From what I know, until the very end Kmita – one of the party activists told the agency. – Łukasz's resignation from running for the marshal's seat? At the moment it is not being considered, because it would mean that two or three councilors are playing off the entire party – said another PiS politician.

Neither Łukasz Smółka nor Łukasz Kmita answered our phone on Thursday.

The head of the Małopolska branch of the Civic Platform (PO) and the mayor of Kraków, Aleksander Miszalski, announces that the Civic Coalition will nominate its candidate for marshal at the next session of the regional assembly if it is certain that this candidate will receive a majority during the vote.

Due to this situation, the PiS central authorities suspended four people from the party membership rights: Marshal Witold Kozłowski, Vice-Marshal Józef Gawron, Voivodeship Councilor and Presidential Minister Piotr Ćwik, as well as the director of the regional council's office Michał Ciechowski.

Jarosław Kaczyński, asked on Wednesday about the stalemate in the Małopolska regional councilreplied that he had an idea “to simply eliminate people who, in such a situation, threaten not the party, but Poland, should be eliminated from the party.”

Early elections in Małopolska will take place if councilors do not elect the provincial board by Wednesday, July 10. This date was set by the Legal and Supervision Department of the Małopolska Provincial Office.

This means that – in accordance with the Act on the Voivodeship Self-Government – on Thursday, July 11, the regional assembly would be dissolved, the mandates of councilors elected in April would automatically expire. The Prime Minister, at the request of the Minister of Internal Affairs and Administration, would appoint a person who, until the election of the board by the new regional assembly, would perform the functions of the regional self-government bodies. According to the regulations, the Prime Minister orders and conducts elections within 90 days from the date the cause occurred.

According to the information from the legal department of the provincial office, the date of new elections to the Małopolska regional assembly should be counted from July 12. Then the 90th day will fall on October 9. The last possible day off from work to hold the elections would therefore be October 6.

According to the employees of the electoral commissions and the provincial and marshal's offices, there is a good chance that the elections would be held earlier, e.g. at the end of September. This possibility is related to the fact that, unlike the April local elections, these would not include the elections of county councils, municipalities, mayors and city presidents.

– This is a huge logistical undertaking, comparable to organizing local government elections in April – said Andrzej Ślęczek, chief specialist of the Delegation of the National Electoral Office in Kraków, about possible early elections.

As he calculated, almost 2.7 million ballots will have to be printed for six constituencies in the province. It would be necessary to establish a provincial electoral commission in Kraków, which will, among other things, accept candidates for councilors and count the results of the vote. 22 territorial commissions will be established – including 19 district commissions and three city commissions: in Kraków, Tarnów and Nowy Sącz.

To conduct the elections, approximately 2,750 district commissions will be needed, each consisting of 7, 9 or 11 people, which means recruiting approximately 27 thousand commission members and persons of trust supervising the course of the elections. – In 99 percent, these would be the same polling stations as on April 7 – said Ślęczek.