Journalist Tomasz Borejza raises alarm: “The Krakow City Office has effectively outlawed the opposition’s election campaign. They’ve done this using a landscape resolution, interpreting it in a way that makes putting up banners for candidates like Mentzen, Nawrocki, and Zandberg illegal. Meanwhile, the office overseen by Mayor Aleksander Miszalski is ignoring its own interpretation and hanging up banners for Trzaskowski.”
Krakow bans election posters, but Miszalski promotes a Trzaskowski banner
“In Krakow, the Civic Platform has effectively banned election campaigning by all opposition committees. You can’t legally hang a poster or banner for Nawrocki or Mentzen here, but the city’s own mayor happily puts up and encourages others to hang Trzaskowski banners,” said Borejza in a video posted online. He pointed out that this was possible thanks to a creative use of the city’s landscape resolution.
“Just before the election, they changed the interpretation of the rules to make everyone think that hanging such banners could result in heavy fines,” he stressed.
In a follow-up post on X, he explained that the ban was enforced through new guidelines defining which campaign materials are allowed in Krakow.
“The list of prohibited materials includes, for example, banners and posters—even if you try to hang them on your own fence. This interpretation was officially confirmed in a letter by a deputy to Miszalski. These new guidelines have practically outlawed grassroots campaigning, where supporters of smaller parties might offer their private property—like a fence—for displaying a candidate’s banner. That kind of campaign, which could help smaller parties compete with the well-funded Civic Platform, has been completely shut down. It’s been orchestrated in a way that convinces the opposition they’re not allowed to hang anything, so they don’t,” he wrote.
Steep penalties?
Borejza also emphasized that “opposition supporters might fear administrative fines, which in Kraków can be extremely high—several thousand złoty over the course of the campaign.”
“As a result, there are virtually no campaign materials for Nawrocki, Mentzen, Biejat, or Zandberg in the city. Their supporters are bound by the ban. But not everyone is. Who’s not afraid of the penalties? Naturally, Civic Platform and Miszalski himself—whose administration issued the new guidelines right before the election,” he observed.
He added that Miszalski “even went so far as to show Civic Platform supporters that there’s nothing to worry about—posting on social media a photo of himself hanging a Trzaskowski banner. A banner that, according to his own city office, is illegal.”
“He even added the slogan ‘TRZASKAMY’—a play on Trzaskowski’s name—encouraging his fellow party members to ignore the rules as well. How does he know he can get away with it? I suspect Civic Platform plans to quietly reverse the resolution’s interpretation after the election, or pretend it never existed—effectively legalizing their actions retroactively,” Borejza concluded.
The journalist attached a photo of Mayor Miszalski putting up a Trzaskowski banner.
“The banner is in clear violation of his own office’s guidelines—but he doesn’t care. Meanwhile, the opposition has been stripped of this option in his city during the campaign,” he summarized.