The governing party Law and Justice’s proposal is that the term of local government should be postponed until 30 April 2024. The most likely date for these elections is 7 or 14 April 2024, deputy interior and administration minister Paweł Szefernaker said on Wednesday (14 September).

The deputy interior minister reminded that according to the current law, the terms of local government and parliament end at the same time.

“Many experts point out that these local elections should be postponed due to the fact that the election dates and the whole election process coincide at the same time. Also, the chairman of the State Electoral Commission has indicated that these elections should be postponed”, claims Szefernaker.

He confirmed that the issue of postponing the local elections was consulted with President Andrzej Duda.

“The President is keen for local government elections to be held as soon as possible, i.e. they should not be postponed by more than six months, and they should be held on the first possible election date so that no one can say that anyone is messing with anything”, Deputy Minister Szefernaker added.

The last local elections in Poland were held on 21 October 2018. At that time, the terms of office of local governments were extended from 4 to 5 years. Therefore, according to the electoral calendar, local government elections should be held in the autumn of 2023. However, the constitutional deadline for parliamentary elections also falls at that time, as the last elections were held on 13 October 2019.

In this situation, Poles would go to the polls twice in spring 2024. On 7 or 14 April there would be a vote in the local elections and probably a few weeks later a vote in the European Parliament elections, for which the last elections were held on 26 May 2019.

Adrian Andrzejewski