The discharge session of the Warsaw City Council is taking place in the shadow of the crisis surrounding the Southern Hospital. Although Rafał Trzaskowski can be calm about the result of the vote thanks to the Civic Coalition (KO) majority, the opposition is announcing its objection and is using the debate for a sharp reckoning with the city authorities. “This is the tip of the iceberg of irregularities and negligence,” PiS councillor Wojciech Zabłocki tells Niezalezna.pl. At the same time, he does not rule out a discussion about a referendum on the recall of the mayor of Warsaw, stressing that “one has to think strategically here, not only with the heart, but also with the head.”
Shortly after 10:00 a.m., the discharge session of the Warsaw City Council began. After it ends, an extraordinary session will be held. At both sessions, councillors will hear information from the mayor of Warsaw regarding the situation at the Southern Hospital. The board of Warsaw’s New Left (NL) has decided that its councillors will vote against granting discharge to the mayor of Warsaw. However, their decision will not affect the final outcome, as Civic Coalition (KO) councillors hold the majority in the council.
In an interview with our portal, Warsaw city councillor Wojciech Zabłocki from the Law and Justice party (Law and Justice (PiS)) admitted that Rafał Trzaskowski “will certainly be counting on receiving discharge.”
“Of course we will not grant this discharge, because what we are hearing now about the Southern Hospital is just the tip of the iceberg – irregularities and negligence caused by the Civic Coalition in Warsaw over the last 20 years. Now we are talking about the Southern Hospital, but I would like to remind you that there have been many more scandals. I recall the secretary, the mayor’s former secretary, who was arrested for corruption, the mayor of Włochy, the mayor of Praga-Południe, and other officials, so every now and then another scandal breaks out. Whether it is reprivatization, or the hospital scandal, or scandals connected with property development. There are very, very many of them. It is simply a clique that should not be governing,” he said.
As he stressed: “We will definitely not grant discharge, leaving aside the fact that over the past year this mayor has been almost absent. He was engaged in a presidential campaign, travelling around the country, appearing in the media, and was not visible here at all and was not aware of what was happening here.”
“However, these two issues are connected in that on the one hand we have total incompetence and neglect of duties, and on the other hand a scandal in which the whole country has seen what it really looks like – what the management of Warsaw really looks like,” he added.
Trzaskowski to follow Miszalski’s path?
We asked whether a scenario in which Rafał Trzaskowski follows the path of Aleksander Miszalski, the former mayor of Kraków who was removed following a referendum, is realistic. “Will you be submitting such a motion for a referendum?” we asked.
“It is possible, some grassroots movements have already emerged. It is good that they have appeared. Let such a debate take place, but it also needs to be approached strategically and procedurally. The thing is that we would very much like the mayor to step down even today. I even submitted an interpellation calling for him to resign at the end of June. That would be easier and cheaper, it would not cost a referendum, which is expensive, and it would not absorb the work of officials and residents. However, we know that this will not happen. We will see…” Zabłocki said.
The PiS councillor pointed out that “the holidays are starting, and within two months you need to realistically collect around 150,000 signatures, because the threshold is 132,000 signatures, but obviously you need some buffer. So one has to consider whether we might burn the issue.”
“If we announce a referendum now at the beginning of the holidays and it turns out that the signatures simply cannot be collected physically, then the issue is burned, and Rafał Trzaskowski will proclaim that it is a success because no one wants to recall him. So one has to think strategically, not only with the heart, but also with the head. One needs to work here and consider whether it would not be better to start such a campaign earlier. So I think we will certainly discuss it. It is good that there are grassroots movements, because this issue of recalling the mayor and changing Warsaw needs to be discussed,” he stressed.