Gdynia as a dress rehearsal for 2027. Has local politics just revealed Poland's next political map?

Something more than a change of council chairman has happened in Gdynia. Tadeusz Szemiot lost his post, Beata Zastawna became the new chairwoman of the City Council, and the coalition that had governed the city since November 2024 ceased to exist. The most interesting thing, however, is not the name of the new chairwoman. It is who proved capable of building a majority. Because if the Gdynia experiment starts repeating itself in other cities, it may become one of the more important political signals ahead of Poland's parliamentary elections in 2027.

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14 september 2026   |   21:08   |   Source: Gazeta Morska   |   Prepared by: Kamil Kusier   |   Print

fot. Magdalena Czernek / gdynia.pl

For several years Polish politics has been used to a simple division: Law and Justice (PiS) on one side, Donald Tusk's camp on the other, and in between the Confederation, the Polish People's Party (PSL), Poland 2050 and successive attempts to build new political projects. Local government, meanwhile, is starting to speak a different language. Gdynia has just shown that local arithmetic can be stronger than party labels.

The Gdynia upheaval was not just a personnel change

On 14 September, at an extraordinary session convened to discuss the creation of a metropolitan association, councillors removed Tadeusz Szemiot as chairman of the Gdynia City Council. Fifteen councillors voted for his removal and thirteen against. In the next vote Beata Zastawna received 15 votes and took over the chair.

What happened around the vote mattered even more. Mayor Aleksandra Kosiorek announced the end of her coalition with KORMiL, the joint club of the Civic Coalition (KO), the Urban Movements and the Left, with which she had governed the city since November 2024. She cited her objection to the removal of Deputy Mayor Rafał Geremek and the councillors' encroachment on the powers of the executive. The alliance had lasted one year, nine months and fifteen days.

It is worth recording what those 15 votes consisted of, because everything else in this story rests on it. The motion to remove the chairman was tabled by PiS councillor Marek Dudziński together with a group of councillors that, by his account, included his party colleagues and representatives of Rozwój Plus, a new centre-right party. Marek Dudziński announced on X that a political upheaval had taken place in Gdynia, that KO's rule was over in a city where the Civic Coalition holds almost half the council seats, and that the mayor had broken with KO. Łukasz Piesiewicz, a councillor from the former coalition, described the new majority from the other side of the barricade, as an alliance of PiS, Wojciech Szczurek's Samorządność local movement, PSL and councillors loyal to the mayor. Two accounts, from an opponent and a beneficiary, say the same thing: the majority was formed across every label that in Warsaw is considered impossible to combine.

One can see Gdynia as another local squabble. One can also see in it a miniature of the problem the whole of Polish politics will face in a year's time.

Do parties still really divide the scene?

Beata Zastawna is not a classic case of a party transfer. Her political path ran through Samorządność, then Aleksandra Kosiorek's Gdynia Dialogue, from which she and four other councillors broke away in 2025 to form the new club Gdynia Niezależna, and since 2025 she has also been associated with PSL. In the Gdynia council she functions at the same time as a local figure and as someone with a party behind her.

There will probably be more politicians like her. Not because parties will disappear. On the contrary, parties will still be needed to win seats. But once the seats are won, a second game begins: the game for a majority. And in that game the line between PiS, the Confederation, PSL, local committees and new projects may turn out to be far less watertight than during a campaign.

Gdynia is not yet a copy of national results, but it could be

Proportion is needed. There are no grounds, after a single vote, to proclaim the birth of a grand right-wing, centrist and agrarian bloc. Local politics has its own rules: a councillor can vote with a political opponent on an investment, a budget or a personnel change and argue fiercely with him the next day. So it should not be said that PiS, the Confederation, the Crown, Rozwój and PSL have formed a coalition in Gdynia. That would go too far.

But something far more interesting can be said: boundaries that until recently seemed impassable are starting to be crossed. And in politics that is often more important than the formal signing of a coalition agreement.

The biggest experiment may be PSL

If anyone should be watching Gdynia closely, it is the Polish People's Party. The agrarians are part of the current governing arrangement, yet their political independence is increasingly questionable. In an August CBOS poll PSL was below the electoral threshold, along with several other smaller groupings.

That creates a fundamental dilemma. Stay with the current camp and try to survive as its junior partner? Look for a path of its own? Or become a bridge between milieus that today describe themselves as right-wing, centrist or local? Gdynia shows that the third option is no longer an abstraction. It does not mean PSL will ally with the Confederation or PiS tomorrow. It means the agrarians may be interested in the role of a party that does not bind itself forever to one camp. And after an election that could prove priceless.

Rozwój is even more interesting

A new variable has appeared on the scene: Rozwój Plus. In Gdynia its councillors were among those who tabled the motion to remove the chairman, and in a Pollster survey [date and commissioning outlet to be added] the party scored 5.14 per cent, against 33.34 per cent for KO, 22.23 per cent for PiS, 13.54 per cent for the Confederation, 8.23 per cent for the New Left and 8.02 per cent for the Confederation of the Polish Crown. A poll is not a forecast, but it shows something important: the Polish right and centre-right are fragmenting into more than two entities.

And here lies a paradox. Fragmentation can be a weakness, because if several parties take voters from one another, some of them will lose seats to the threshold. It can also be a strength, because if they are able to reach agreement after the election, they will build a majority no single party could ever achieve.

The arithmetic is merciless, but it does not decide

The four right and centre-right parties in that poll, PiS, both Confederations and Rozwój Plus, add up to 48.93 per cent. That is not a parliamentary majority, but it is already serious negotiating potential, especially if part of PSL were to end up on that side of the puzzle.

Except that elections are won not by adding percentages but by seats. The d'Hondt system rewards larger parties, so four parties may have a great many votes between them and still lose seats if they compete in the same constituencies. That is why before 2027 we will see a game over form: a joint list, separate lists with an agreement signed before the election, or separate lists with no commitments and talks afterwards. Gdynia shows a fourth option: no grand ideological agreement is needed to build a majority together. That may be the most forward-looking element of this whole story.

Who can assemble 231 seats

Perhaps in 2027 Poles will not be offered the choice of PiS or KO. Perhaps they will get a parliament more fragmented than ever: KO, PiS, the Confederation, the Crown, Rozwój, the Left, PSL and perhaps someone else. In such a parliament the key question will not be who won the election, but who can assemble 231 of the 460 seats.

Imagine KO as the largest party. That need not mean its leader will be able to form a government. One can win an election and lose power. PiS knows the mechanism well: in 2023 it won the most votes but could not build a majority, and government passed to the coalition of KO, the Third Way and the Left. History can work the other way round.

A coalition without a leader

And here we come to something I will state as a thesis and take responsibility for: none of today's official candidates for prime minister, nor the current prime minister, will head the government after the 2027 election. Not because KO will lose. Because the governing coalition has no leader for the next round and is incapable of producing one.

The problem lies in the very construction of that camp. The governing coalition thinks about its leadership exclusively within the Civic Platform: Donald Tusk's successor can only be someone from the Platform, anointed by the Platform, in the Platform's logic. PSL, Poland 2050 and the Left are add-ons to the list in that thinking, not partners in choosing a leader. Such a camp is unable to step outside its own frame, and that is precisely what is self-destructive about it. Because in a fragmented parliament the government is formed not by whoever has the most seats, but by whoever can be a leader for several parties at once. A coalition that cannot name a leader even for itself will not name one for anyone else.

A condition for the other side

For the scenario of PiS plus the Confederation plus the Crown plus the centre plus PSL to become real, those milieus would have to answer the question of what unites them beyond dislike of the current government. A coalition built solely against someone can win an election. Governing with it is much harder. PiS and the Confederation disagree on the economy, the European Union, social policy and how the state should be run. The Confederation and the Crown are not one organism. Rozwój is still looking for its own space. PSL has a different history, electorate and interests. A common adversary can be the glue for a few months. It will not last four years of government.

That is why, paradoxically, the most interesting player may be not the largest party but the political centre between the blocs. Someone with 5 to 8 per cent may hold more power than a party with 20, because if neither side has a majority, a few percentage points become the bargaining chip. And that is why PSL, Rozwój and local government milieus matter so much today. Not because they must win. Because they may decide who wins power.

Wojciech Szczurek has not disappeared from the puzzle either

Gdynia holds one more symbol. Wojciech Szczurek lost the mayoral election in 2024 and ended a long era, but his Samorządność did not disappear. It holds five seats on the council, and in the new arrangement those five seats proved decisive. In Poland the time of politicians who can be easily assigned to a single national label is ending. The importance of people who are first from their city and only then from their party is growing. If that trend consolidates, national parties will have to learn to negotiate with them.

Gdynia may be a beginning, but not necessarily of what either side expects

I would not say today: Gdynia has pushed out Donald Tusk's camp, so Poland will do the same in 2027. That would be too simple. I would say something else: Gdynia has shown that political boundaries are less stable than they were a few years ago. And that is the far more important news.

If in the coming months majorities combining local politicians, PSL, right-wing milieus and new centrist projects begin to form in other cities, it will be possible to speak of a change in the political model. A model in which parties still fight one another before elections, but after elections it turns out ever more often that what matters is not the label but the ability to build a majority.

Then 2027 may bring the most paradoxical result imaginable. KO may win the election. PiS may win its part of the right. The Confederation may achieve a historic result. The Crown may enter parliament. Rozwój may become the kingmaker. PSL may survive thanks to the role of intermediary. And yet the real fight for power will only begin the next day, because a government is formed by whoever can find 231 people ready to press the same button. And today no side has him.

That is why it is worth looking not only at Warsaw. It is worth looking at Gdynia.

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Rada Miasta Gdyni Aleksandra Kosiorek wybory parlamentarne 2027 koalicja rządząca kto wygra wybory parlamentarne w 2027 roku

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