Some village heads and mayors have criticized the Sejm’s Thursday decision to reject a bill that would have scrapped the two-term limit for local executives. The local officials said that similar term limits perhaps should also be introduced for members of the Sejm, Poland’s lower house of parliament, and for senators.
After the Sejm rejected an amendment to the Electoral Code that would have abolished the two-term limit for village heads (wójtowie), mayors and city presidents, local officials themselves weighed in. Some of them believe the current rules unfairly restrict residents’ ability to reelect their local leader.
“Residents’ choice was limited in advance only because their proven mayor, village head or city president is finishing a second term. If someone isn’t up to the job, residents could always replace him at the ballot box. If someone works well, develops the municipality and enjoys public support, why take away residents’ ability to elect him again?” Maciej Berlicki, mayor of the Sianów municipality, said on social media.
He noted that in the next elections, municipalities may have trouble finding suitable candidates. He stressed that experience and knowledge of local problems cannot be acquired overnight.
“Because experience matters. Knowing the municipality, its problems and its residents’ needs, and the ability to secure funding and carry out investments don’t appear overnight. Simply changing the person in the post cannot replace that,” the mayor of Sianów wrote.
Michał Rudzki, mayor of Karczew, also pointed to residents’ right to reelect their leaders. He called slogans about “cementing” local governments in place “fake news and pure populism.”
“Today, after the vote on abolishing the two-term limit, I read headlines in the media like ‘No to eternal local leaders,’ and I immediately recall a few facts that supporters of the two-term limit should familiarize themselves with. Over the past 18 years, the local leader changed in 87% of municipalities, and in 2024 as many as 39% of municipalities chose new leaders. These figures prove that slogans about cementing local governments in place are fake news and pure populism,” Rudzki said.
Maciej Żebrowski, mayor of Wałcz, made similar arguments. He noted that between 2014 and 2024, only 914 of 2,479 local chief executives held office for three consecutive terms, and that after the 2024 elections power changed hands in nearly 40% of municipalities.
“In the next elections, the two-term limit will eliminate many experienced local officials who dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic, the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, the influx of refugees and the energy crisis. Should their future really be decided by a statutory limit rather than by residents? Democracy is not only the right to choose. It is also the right to choose again,” Żebrowski said.
According to Paweł Kownacki, head of the Wieliszew municipality, a long tenure in office does not have to mean wrongdoing or involve the building of local cliques.
“I’m not saying that every long-serving village head is a good village head. Nor am I saying that simply winning an election justifies everything. We need transparency, fair competition, effective oversight and real accountability for the decisions that are made,” he wrote.
Eugeniusz Gołembiewski, mayor of Kowal and vice chairman of the Union of Polish Small Towns, also responded to the lawmakers’ decision. He said the two-term limit in local government is unconstitutional.
“This decision, like the law introduced by PiS [Law and Justice], violates the Constitution of the Republic of Poland! The Constitution unambiguously states that every citizen may seek public office,” the mayor stressed.
Gołembiewski also criticized members of parliament who, in his view, are keen to take over local officials’ posts.
“Parliamentarians uncertain about their own future want to make it easier to ‘manage’ more than 1,600 posts left by heads of local government who, under a law that violates the Constitution, have been barred from seeking reelection,” the mayor of Kowal wrote.
In their statements, the local officials also raised the issue of parliamentarians’ terms. In their view, if a limit applies in local government, similar rules are worth considering for Sejm members and senators.
“And what about limiting parliamentarians’ terms? Shouldn’t there be a clearing of the air there, too? (…) Parliamentarians are unlikely to vote against themselves. Let’s say it plainly,” Berlicki noted.
“I also wonder why so much is said about the need to limit the number of terms for local officials, and much less about similar limits for parliamentarians. I’m not demanding a two-term limit in the Sejm. I simply believe that voters should decide whether someone still deserves their trust,” Kownacki wrote.
The PSL (Polish People’s Party) responded to the outcome of the Sejm vote by proposing term limits for Sejm members and senators as well.
“Two terms for Sejm members and senators, too! If we have two terms for village heads, mayors and city presidents, the same rules should apply to Sejm members and senators!” party politicians wrote on the social media platform X.
The idea of introducing term limits for parliamentarians was also raised in early October by the party’s leader, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz.
“PSL will be the party that says: not from local government, not from local Poland, start with yourselves, Sejm members and senators. (…) This is not any kind of blackmail, (…) it’s really a measure of fairness, because it can’t be that it starts not with yourselves but with others,” Kosiniak-Kamysz said.
The bill amending the Electoral Code was submitted to the Sejm in July 2025 on the initiative of the PSL. It provided for abolishing the rule under which a person can serve as village head, mayor or city president for only two terms.
The bill also proposed eliminating the ban on a candidate for village head, mayor or city president running in elections to the county council and the regional assembly (sejmik).
The two-term limit for the executive bodies of municipalities, combined with extending one term to five years, was introduced in 2018. Since then, it has been opposed by, among others, the PSL camp. (PAP)
