Łukasz Gibała

Łukasz Gibała (born 10 September 1977 in Kraków) is a politician and entrepreneur from Poland who was elected mayor of Kraków in a snap runoff on 11 October 2026. Standing as an independent, and as founder of the residents' association Kraków dla Mieszkańców, he received 62.12 percent of the vote to 37.88 percent for Monika Piątkowska, a member of the Senate of Poland backed jointly by the Civic Coalition of Civic Platform and the Polish People's Party. Turnout was 44.27 percent. The city council set his oath for 20 October 2026 at 18:30.

The vote filled the vacancy left when residents recalled Mayor Aleksander Miszalski, also aligned with the Civic Coalition, in a referendum in May 2026. It was Gibała's fourth campaign for the mayoralty. He placed third in 2014, with a little over 11 percent, and third again in 2018, with a little over 17 percent, and in April 2024 he lost a runoff to Miszalski by about two percentage points, roughly 5,000 votes. On 27 September 2026 he led the first round with 36.4 percent to Piątkowska's 29.9 percent; the Law and Justice candidate finished third on 17.5 percent.

Before the mayoral campaigns he represented Kraków in the Sejm. Elected on the Civic Platform list, he won 11,413 votes in 2007 and took the oath on 5 November 2007; returned in 2011 with 18,583 votes, he took the oath on 8 November 2011. The parliamentary register places him in the Civic Platform club for the sixth term and lists him as non-attached for the seventh. He later sat on the Kraków city council, and his association spent nearly 1.9 million zł on the 2026 recall campaign.

Gibała campaigned on the city's debt, appointments at city hall, public-transport fares, a referendum on Kraków's clean-transport zone, and planning decisions he argued should favour residents over developers and limit short-term tourist lets. Notes from Poland described him as a wealthy businessman who had largely funded his own political activity. He takes office against a council chosen in 2024, on which Civic Coalition and the Left together hold 23 of 43 seats, and after Prime Minister Donald Tusk had campaigned in person for Piątkowska. His predecessor in the office through 2024 was Jacek Majchrowski, mayor from 2002 until Miszalski's election.

Early life and education

Family and upbringing

Łukasz Gibała was born on 10 September 1977 in Kraków, Poland. He has said that he grew up in the Prądnik Czerwony district, first in a ten-storey block of flats on Majora Street, in an area he remembered as still semi-rural, with cattle grazing and people working the land, and later in a small house his parents built there. He attended Primary School No. 2 in the district, and he has described going out after school to play football in the fields.

In a March 2024 interview he said that he had been born into a wealthy family, while adding that he had come to many things in life by himself. His father, Leszek Gibała, is a Kraków businessman. In 2009 he was the majority shareholder of Alti Plus, a firm among the bidders for state-owned Polmos vodka distilleries in Bielsko-Biała and Józefów. The Treasury dropped the sale after Julia Pitera, then the government's plenipotentiary for fighting corruption, said there was a clear conflict of interest: Łukasz Gibała, by then a Civic Platform deputy, had sat on the company's supervisory board from 2001 until November 2006. Polityka reported in September 2026 that Leszek Gibała owned all the shares in Alti Plus SA, and the National Court Register lists him as that company's sole shareholder. Łukasz Gibała has said that his father and his brother run businesses of their own, and that he has no say in them.

He is a nephew of the politician Jarosław Gowin. In March 2012, while minister of justice, Gowin told Polsat News that he was speaking of "Łukasz, because he is my sister's son," and that he was personally disappointed by Gibała's move from Civic Platform to Janusz Palikot's party. Gibała has publicly set himself apart from Gowin's views. In 2024 he said the two were hardly in contact and had last seen each other only briefly, several years earlier.

University and doctorate

Gazeta Krakowska reports that he completed Kraków's X Liceum Ogólnokształcące and then studied philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Jagiellonian University. That lycée is the city's X Liceum Ogólnokształcące im. Komisji Edukacji Narodowej, named for the Commission of National Education. The Sejm's biographical note for his term as a deputy records a master's degree in philosophy from that faculty and the degree of doctor of philosophy. The same Kraków paper reported that he worked at the faculty as an assistant from 2002 to 2006.

Collegium Broscianum on Grodzka Street in Kraków, a building of the Jagiellonian University Faculty of Philosophy.

His dissertation, Semantyka światów możliwych a modalność metafizyczna (Semantics of possible worlds and metaphysical modality), is catalogued by the Jagiellonian Digital Library as a 2007 doctoral thesis of the Faculty of Philosophy and its Institute of Philosophy, archived by the university as Dokt. 2007/100. The record names Adam Grobler as supervisor and Jacek Paśniczek and Jerzy Perzanowski as reviewers, and gives 22 May 2007 as the date of the defence. Its indexed subjects are possible worlds, modality, abstractionism and hyperrealism. Asked about the work in September 2026, Gibała called it a purely theoretical study of whether logical tools developed by Saul Kripke could settle long-running philosophical disputes. He said his conclusion was negative: possible-worlds semantics might clarify such problems, but it would not resolve them.

He also held a one-year scholarship at the University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame, Indiana. Accounts drawing on the Polish Press Agency say that, after the doctorate, he worked in research for several years before turning to business.

Business career

Travel technology

Before the manufacturing companies of the 2010s, Łukasz Gibała was a founder and co-owner of two Kraków firms in travel technology, TravelTECH and TravelOVO, and later sold his stakes.

Travelovo Sp. z o.o. sold airline tickets online; Traveltech Sp. z o.o. supplied the software. On 4 January 2008 the Poland-based tour operator Rainbow Tours reported buying 280 shares in each Kraków company from the existing shareholders—56 percent of each capital—for 436,800 złoty a block. The portal was to feed an integrated online platform, including “dynamic packaging” and bookings without a consultant, with Traveltech providing the technology. Rainbow capped further investment at 1.5 million złoty in each firm and said its management had no links with the sellers. A letter of intent of 17 December 2007 had set combined further investment at up to 3 million złoty and a 2008 sales budget of 22 million złoty for a portal to be joined with Rainbow’s Wyruszamy.pl. The report did not name the sellers, so it does not show what Gibała received.

Ductor and manufacturing

In 2015 Gibała founded Ductor Sp. z o.o., entered in the National Court Register on 16 June 2015 (KRS 0000563233) with its seat in Kraków, share capital of 5,000 złoty and a principal activity of head-office services. It was the parent of Fiberlab S.A., the manufacturer.

Fiberlab was registered on 25 November 2014 (KRS 0000533098), with fully paid share capital of 1,566,700 złoty and its seat in Brzezie, in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship. It says it has traded since 2016 under two brands: Fiberlogy, 3D printing filament for FFF/FDM printers, and Timberness, composite decking, using equipment from German suppliers. Gibała sat on Fiberlab’s supervisory board until that appointment was deleted on 29 May 2024. His father, Leszek Antoni Gibała, is recorded as the company’s indirect beneficial owner.

Startup funding came from the family group. Near the beginning Ductor carried a long-term liability of about 50.5 million złoty to an entity owned by Leszek Gibała; other reporting identifies the lender as Alti Plus, his wholesale alcohol business. Alti Plus S.A. is wholly his. An analysis of filings cited by Polityka found that at the end of 2024 it had lent about 457 million złoty entirely from its own funds, and that Ductor owed it 260.4 million.

Ductor’s 2022 statement showed debt above 234 million złoty and a loss of nearly 15 million. Gibała said his father’s firms were the creditors, that the money financed investment, and that principal of just under 210 million złoty had risen with interest above 250 million. He said the assets exceeded the liabilities and that the debt was the company’s, not his own.

On 16 May 2024 the register deleted his 99 shares, nominally 4,950 złoty, and his presidency; Leszek Gibała took those shares and, briefly, the presidency. Gibała called the handover repayment of the loan, made to end speculation, and said he would not return to the firm. Adrianna Siudy became president on 26 June 2024. On 25 September 2025 Alti Plus was entered as holder of all 100 shares, with Leszek Gibała as indirect beneficial owner. The ownership change did not clear the debt: Ductor still owed Alti Plus 260.4 million złoty at the end of 2024.

Register filings show Ductor with sales of about 6.9 million złoty and a net loss of about 22.6 million in 2023, then no reported sales, a net profit of about 13.8 million in 2024 and a net loss of about 0.9 million in 2025. Balance-sheet totals were about 199 million, 227 million and 235 million złoty. Fiberlab’s sales were about 21.7 million, 19.6 million and 12.6 million złoty over the same years, with a net loss each year. His asset declaration reported about 600,000 złoty from Ductor for 2023 and more than 495,000 złoty net in board pay for 2024. He later said the company had from the start been meant to finance his residents’ association.

Regional and national politics, 2004–2015

Civic Platform and the regional assembly

By March 2012 Łukasz Gibała said he had belonged to Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska, PO) for eight years, which places his joining the party in 2004. In the 2006 local elections he stood for the regional assembly of the Lesser Poland Voivodeship in constituency no. 3, covering Kraków. Fifth on the list of Komitet Wyborczy Platforma Obywatelska RP, he received 9,939 votes—4.19 percent of valid votes in the constituency and 9.08 percent of the list's 109,459—and won a seat.

On 28 March 2010 a congress of Kraków PO delegates elected him city chairman. In a secret first ballot of 437 delegates he took 218 votes to Ireneusz Raś's 217, with two abstentions, short of the 219 required for an absolute majority. Raś then withdrew. Under the bargain that followed, the congress was to recommend Raś for the regional chair and Jarosław Gowin, counted among Gibała's supporters, for regional vice-chair. Gibała said that "the whole of Civic Platform in Kraków" had won.

Member of the Sejm

In the 2007 parliamentary election he entered the Sejm from the Civic Platform list in district no. 13 (Kraków) with 11,413 votes and took the oath on 5 November 2007. The chamber's file lists the PO club, the profession of entrepreneur, and no earlier parliamentary service. From 15 November 2007 he sat on the Administration and Internal Affairs Committee until the sixth term ended on 7 November 2011, and on the Constitutional Accountability Committee until 8 October 2010, when he moved to the Economy Committee. He also chaired the short-lived subcommittee on a government bill to change a forename or surname, from 17 September to 8 October 2008.

He was returned in the 2011 Polish parliamentary election in the same district, with 18,583 votes, and sworn in on 8 November 2011. A published roll of the seventh-term Economy Committee lists him as a member from 9 November 2012. In Polityka's 16th ranking of deputies, published on 26 September 2013 from a ballot of parliamentary reporters, he finished just outside the top ten. The jurors, writing while he sat with Palikot's Movement, credited him with sticking to economic questions and staying out of routine political rows.

Break with Civic Platform

On 8 March 2012, still described as chairman of Kraków PO and as a nephew of Justice Minister Jarosław Gowin, Gibała resigned from the party and its Sejm club and joined Palikot's Movement (Ruch Palikota). He said a gap had opened during eight years in PO, that a call to "return to the roots" had been received coldly, and that he disagreed with the party over access to public information and the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. He argued that PO had abandoned the civic and free-market ideas on which it was founded, that he had long backed Janusz Palikot—whose course he called good for Poland—and that they shared ground on entrepreneurship and a secular state.

Palikot called the switch the first departure of a PO deputy that term, said Gibała would be the face of the club's liberal wing, and said he would recommend him to the presidium. Gibała said other PO deputies were not following. Club chair Rafał Grupiński called the move extremely disloyal, and PAP reported that PO politicians treated it as no loss because, in their view, he had never fitted the party. The same reports put the coalition of Civic Platform and the Polish People's Party at 234 deputies, three above an absolute majority. On 23 April 2012 Gazeta Wyborcza reported that Gibała, asked by Palikot to organize the Kraków branch, was to name about 80 Lesser Poland activists leaving PO. He blamed Donald Tusk's "one-person, authoritarian" management of the party.

He stayed in that camp until summer 2014. On 7 July he said he would resign the next day from the club, by then called Your Movement (Twój Ruch), and sit as an independent, so that a candidate for mayor of Kraków would answer to residents rather than a party leader. He kept the Sejm seat. Palikot described the step as an arrangement for the local elections. The Sejm's club register lists him among non-attached deputies from 8 July 2014, and his biographical entry records the club as "niez."—the final affiliation, not the PO club in which he was elected and sat until March 2012.

In the 2015 parliamentary election he did not stand again for the Sejm. Heading KWW Łukasza Gibały "Niezależni do Senatu," he ran for the Senate of Poland in constituency no. 33, southern Kraków, with no party membership. He finished third with 52,999 votes (28.06 percent), behind Bogdan Klich of Civic Platform (71,852; 38.04 percent) and Renata Godyń-Swędzioł of Law and Justice (64,035; 33.90 percent), and left parliament at the end of the term.

Kraków dla Mieszkańców and the city council

Founding and local programme

In the 2014 elections to the 43-seat Kraków City Council, Łukasz Gibała’s voters’ committee, KWW Łukasza Gibały „Kraków miastem dla ludzi”, received 9,073 of 228,864 valid votes. Dziennik Polski, reporting the official count, put the share at 3.96 percent, under the five-percent threshold, and recorded no seats. Seats went to Law and Justice (19), Civic Platform (18) and the committee of mayor Jacek Majchrowski (six); KWW Kraków Przeciw Igrzyskom (6.73 percent) and KWW Nowa Prawica (5.55 percent) also cleared the threshold and won none.

On 10 December 2014 that circle adopted the statute of an association, entered in the National Court Register on 13 March 2015 as Stowarzyszenie Logiczna Alternatywa (Logical Alternative), KRS 0000548117. The name referred to Gibała’s slogan „Logiczny wybór”. Onet quoted him calling it a Kraków-only political body, not an ordinary NGO: it would watch the city executive, join debate and table proposals, including by citizens’ legislative initiative, ahead of the next local elections. Gazeta Krakowska reported his aim to be „an opposition from outside the council”, checking promises, errors and spending. Onet named a temporary board of Gibała, Adrianna Siudy and Joanna Jankowska, and more than 30 people involved.

The register shows two renamings. A statute change of 28 June 2017, entered on 18 October 2017, produced Logiczna Alternatywa dla Krakowa; an amendment of the naming clause on 15 November 2018, entered on 8 January 2019, produced Kraków dla Mieszkańców (Kraków for Residents). The objects on file are a city „convenient to live in”, where the resident counts for more than buildings and cars; an ecological, economical „smart city”; a creative economy; and a modern European metropolis that keeps its historic fabric, pursued through public space, planning, infrastructure, transport and work with young people. In the 2015 participatory budget it filed a Vistula recreation ground, free sports classes, and smog boards with a telephone line. In June 2017, after free advice on developers and permits drew more than 100 approaches, it opened Pogotowie Obywatelskie, a web form staffed by three lawyers, covering housing and other complaints, including building on green land.

Council term from 2018

On 21 October 2018 KWW Łukasza Gibały „Kraków dla Mieszkańców” won 41,953 votes, 12.73 percent, and four of 43 seats, third behind Majchrowski’s Obywatelski Kraków (143,883 votes, 43.65 percent, 23 seats) and Law and Justice (98,305, 29.82 percent, 16). Elected were Łukasz Maślona (district 1, 3,002 votes), Gibała (district 3, 7,683), Jan Pietras (district 4, 2,291) and Alicja Szczepańska (district 5, 2,721). They sat as a minority club with Gibała as chair.

On 18 November 2020 Szczepańska left, citing the leader’s „one-directional” conduct and what she called a continual negative campaign, and a picture of the city, produced with the association, that she did not share. In 2024 the National Electoral Commission recorded her return on the Civic Coalition list, with 2,944 votes in district 5.

On 7 April 2024 KWW Łukasza Gibały – Kraków dla Mieszkańców took 46,012 votes, 15.56 percent of 295,774 valid votes for council lists, and seven seats. The Civic Coalition won 118,641 (40.11 percent) and 24 seats, and Law and Justice 68,615 (23.20 percent) and 12; no other list won a seat. Ilustrowany Kurier Codzienny called 15.56 percent weaker than polls that had put the committee near the Civic Coalition. Elected were Maślona (district 1, 2,509), Aleksandra Owca (district 2, 3,630), Gibała (district 3, 4,423), Michał Starobrat (district 4, 3,237), Rafał Zawiślak (district 5, 3,182), Rafał Nowak (district 6, 1,855) and Eliza Dydyńska-Czesak (district 7, 1,397). The city bulletin lists Gibała as club chair and as a member of the Main Committee, the Committee on Innovation, the Metropolis and Economic Development, and the Audit Committee.

A LoveKraków.pl count for 2025 found that Gibała filed 145 interpellations and one query, the most on the council; Jakub Kosek of the Civic Coalition filed 114 and Piotr Moskała 100. He called a public question more transparent than a private deal; Mariusz Kękuś of Law and Justice, in the same survey, said an interpellation could inform but did not itself solve a problem. Starobrat attended 94.74 percent of his committee meetings that year, the second-highest rate.

On 5 January 2026 Owca, a co-chair of the left-wing party Razem, left to sit as an independent, saying the club no longer matched the social programme she wanted. The paper then counted six members and called the club, with Law and Justice, the opposition to a Civic Coalition and New Left majority. After his election as mayor, the election commissioner in Kraków, by decisions of 12 and 13 October 2026, declared his council mandate expired. The bulletin’s club list thereafter named five members — Dydyńska-Czesak and Starobrat as vice-chairs, Maślona as press spokesman, Nowak and Zawiślak — with Owca outside any club.

Mayoral campaigns, 2014–2024

The 2014 and 2018 elections

Łukasz Gibała first stood for mayor of Kraków on 16 November 2014, heading the voters' committee Kraków miastem dla ludzi. The National Electoral Commission counted eight candidates, 242,771 valid votes and a turnout of 41.93 percent. Incumbent Jacek Majchrowski led with 95,106 votes (39.18 percent). Marek Lasota of Law and Justice was second with 65,417 (26.95 percent), and Gibała third with 27,090 (11.16 percent). Marta Patena of Civic Platform received 22,267 (9.17 percent); Tomasz Leśniak, whose committee opposed a Kraków Winter Olympics bid, 11,749 (4.84 percent); and Konrad Berkowicz, of a New Right committee, 10,489 (4.32 percent). Sławomir Ptaszkiewicz took 7,825 (3.22 percent) and Andrzej Sikorski 2,828 (1.16 percent).

Majchrowski and Lasota met in a runoff on 30 November. Majchrowski won another term with 114,705 votes (58.77 percent) against Lasota's 80,477 (41.23 percent). Turnout fell to 33.95 percent.

Gibała ran again on 21 October 2018 for the committee Kraków dla Mieszkańców. Majchrowski's Obywatelski Kraków list, backed by Civic Platform, Modern, the Democratic Left Alliance and the Polish People's Party, took 154,830 votes (45.84 percent). Małgorzata Wassermann of Law and Justice took 107,686 (31.88 percent), and Gibała 57,901 (17.14 percent). Berkowicz, on the committee Nowoczesny Kraków, received 2.5 percent; Daria Gosek-Popiołek, of Razem dla Krakowa, 1.38 percent; and Jolanta Gajęcka, of Kukiz'15, 1.25 percent. City turnout was 58.43 percent. On 4 November Majchrowski defeated Wassermann, 197,019 votes (61.94 percent) to 121,083 (38.06 percent), with turnout at 55.26 percent.

The council was elected with the first round. Gibała won a seat in district 3 with 7,683 votes, 14.79 percent of the valid vote there. His committee took four of the 43 seats, Majchrowski's list 23 and Law and Justice 16.

The 2024 election

Majchrowski, mayor since 2002, did not stand in 2024. In the first round on 7 April, Aleksander Miszalski, a Civic Coalition member of the Sejm, led with 110,556 votes (37.21 percent). Gibała, an entrepreneur and former member of the Sejm who had earlier been associated with Civic Platform and Palikot's Movement, was second for Kraków dla Mieszkańców with 79,580 (26.79 percent). Łukasz Kmita of Law and Justice was third with 58,795 (19.79 percent). Andrzej Kulig, a longtime Majchrowski associate and a deputy mayor, whom the outgoing mayor had backed when Kulig entered the race, polled 21,341 (7.18 percent). Berkowicz, for Confederation and Nonpartisan Local Government Activists, received 14,854 (5.00 percent); Rafał Komarewicz, of Poland 2050, 9,126 (3.07 percent); and Adam Hareńczyk, of Zjednoczeni dla Krakowa, 2,837 (0.95 percent). Turnout was 51.79 percent. Stanisław Mazur, rector of Kraków's University of Economics, and deputy mayor Jerzy Muzyk withdrew before the first round; Mazur endorsed Miszalski.

Law and Justice's Kraków organization did not name a runoff favorite. On 11 April it asked supporters to vote according to their own judgment, said that staying home would be silent support for Civic Platform's candidate, and advised against voting for Miszalski, while stating that the party was not entering a coalition. Berkowicz said he would vote for Gibała, calling both finalists ideologically distant from him. In December 2023 Gosek-Popiołek, a Left deputy linked to Razem, had endorsed Gibała, declined to run, and placed Razem activists on his council lists. Miszalski, the Civic Coalition and New Left candidate, also gained the Polish People's Party, Poland 2050 and Majchrowski, who urged voters not to back Gibała.

On 21 April Miszalski won with 133,703 votes (51.04 percent) to Gibała's 128,269 (48.96 percent), a margin of 5,434, on a turnout of 45.50 percent. Gibała wrote that the result showed his committee to be the voice of half of the city's residents. In the council election his list won seven seats, Law and Justice 12 and the Civic Coalition 24.

The 2026 recall referendum

Petition, campaign and money

On 24 May 2026 Kraków voted on removing Mayor Aleksander Miszalski, of Prime Minister Donald Tusk's Civic Coalition, and, on a separate ballot, the city council. Electoral commissioner Dagmara Daniec-Cisło ordered both questions on 7 April after a citizens' petition met the signature test.

The application came from 21 residents headed by Jan Hoffman, chairman of the board of District I (Stare Miasto), with lawyer Rafał Zontek as plenipotentiary. The group called itself non-partisan. It accused Miszalski of rising debt, cronyism in appointments and policies favouring developers, and it criticised a clean-transport zone, introduced at the start of 2026, that restricted older vehicles, together with higher charges for public transport, waste and parking. The law required signatures from 10 percent of registered voters, 58,355 people. Organisers submitted almost 134,000 in March; with fewer than 80,000 checked, the valid total had already passed the minimum.

Signature-gathering drew support from the opposition Law and Justice party and from Confederation. Łukasz Gibała, runner-up to Miszalski in the 2024 runoff, called the date "a great battle for Kraków" and urged residents to "reclaim their city" from party structures he said were run from Warsaw. Miszalski asked supporters to stay home and judge him in 2029, writing that "low turnout in the referendum and high turnout on election day will be our victory."

The committee Grupa Obywateli Referendum.KRK.PL reported income of 1,976,276.06 zlotys and spending of 1,976,011.31 zlotys. Of the income, 1,895,164.49 zlotys was the stated market value of goods and services from Kraków dla Mieszkańców, the association Gibała leads. The initiators put in 69,171.57 zlotys, and 43 people donated 10,940 zlotys. The statement listed no party grants, public collections or loans. Campaign materials cost 1,179,544.01 zlotys and pay for signature collectors 464,537.46 zlotys. Gibała told Gazeta Wyborcza that the association had raised its budget against what he called the city's spending advantage, including an official newspaper; Miszalski said the scale of the outlay did not surprise him.

Result and the vacancy

A recall binds only if turnout reaches three-fifths of the vote at the last election of that body and most valid votes favour removal. For the mayor the floor was 158,555 people, 26.98 percent, taken from the 2024 runoff. The municipal commission recorded 176,228 participants, 29.99 percent, and declared the referendum valid and Miszalski removed. The published count was 171,581 votes for recall and 3,631 against; Politico reported that 97.93 percent of those who voted backed removal, a share shaped by the boycott call.

Voters pass the sign for referendum precinct commission no. 12 in Kraków on 24 May 2026.

Turnout on the council question was 29.97 percent, short of a higher threshold of 179,792 voters, or 30.59 percent, so that referendum was invalid and the councillors stayed. The count was 168,010 votes for dismissal and 6,713 against. Civic Coalition and the New Left kept their council majority.

Miszalski wrote that he accepted the decision with respect, because "local democracy is precisely about the residents having the final say." On 26 May Tusk said Miszalski ceased that day to be mayor—"Such is democracy"—and, on the Małopolska voivode's motion, appointed Stanisław Kracik commissioner. Kracik, a deputy mayor and a former Małopolska voivode, was to exercise the mayor's powers until a successor was chosen. A successful recall of a mayor titled city president had happened only six times before, among 107 such cities.

Edward E. Nowak asked the Regional Court in Kraków to annul the mayoral vote, arguing that online campaigning during the silence from midnight on 23 May until the polls closed had pushed turnout over the line. On 17 June the court dismissed the protest (I Ns 9/26): it found banned agitation in 32 cases, including posts and paid ads, but not proof that they could have changed enough votes to alter the result. The Court of Appeal rejected his complaint on 28 July. On 31 July Tusk ordered an early mayoral election for Sunday, 27 September 2026.

The 2026 early election and mayoralty

Candidates and the first round

The snap election followed the removal of mayor Aleksander Miszalski, of the Civic Coalition, in a recall referendum on 24 May 2026. Of those who voted, 97.3 percent backed removal, after he had asked supporters to stay home so turnout would stay under the 27 percent needed for a binding result. The first round was held in Kraków on 27 September 2026.

Eight candidates had been registered. On the Wednesday before polling day, Jan Hoffman, who had initiated the recall, withdrew and endorsed Łukasz Gibała, arguing that party candidates were fighting Warsaw’s disputes and that the two non-party campaigns should combine, possibly in time to shape the next city budget. He named an external audit of the city, changes to the clean-transport zone, keeping specialist staff, and restoring the 20-minute public-transport ticket; Gibała said he would carry those points out in full. Hoffman told supporters that a vote for him would be invalid if his name remained on the ballot.

Seven candidates remained. Turnout was 43.50 percent, and 255,785 votes were valid. Gibała, of the Kraków dla Mieszkańców committee, led with 93,042 votes (36.38 percent). Monika Piątkowska, on her own committee and the joint candidate of Civic Coalition and the Polish People's Party, was second with 76,514 (29.91 percent). Michał Drewnicki of Law and Justice took 44,772 (17.50 percent). Aleksandra Owca of Razem received 17,684 (6.91 percent), Daria Gosek-Popiołek of The Left 12,303 (4.81 percent), Michał Klimek of the Confederation of the Polish Crown 10,523 (4.11 percent), and Sławomir Pietrzyk of Social Democracy of Poland 947 (0.37 percent). Nobody reached half the vote, so the first two advanced.

This was Gibała’s fourth mayoral candidacy, after standing in every contest from 2014, and it followed a narrow loss to Miszalski in 2024. He ran as an independent; he had previously been a member of parliament for Civic Platform, the largest party in the coalition of Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Piątkowska had sat in the Senate since 2025 and had worked in city hall under mayor Jacek Majchrowski. Tusk and Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, leader of the Polish People's Party and a deputy prime minister, presented her candidacy in June.

Runoff and the official result

The runoff was on Sunday, 11 October 2026. Piątkowska conceded shortly after 21:00, when exit polls already showed a wide margin: an Ipsos survey for the main broadcasters put Gibała at 61 percent, and an OGB survey for Polsat News and Newsmax put him at 64.1 percent.

The municipal election commission, from protocols of all 454 polling commissions, recorded 161,184 votes for Gibała (62.12 percent) and 98,306 for Piątkowska (37.88 percent), and declared him elected. The city, citing the National Electoral Commission, reported the same shares and a turnout of 44.27 percent. There were 591,966 eligible voters, in 412 ordinary districts and 42 special commissions at hospitals, care homes and prisons. The election commissioner published the results of both rounds on 12 October in the official journal of the Małopolska voivodeship.

A district compilation published by Polska Press, and reported by KR24, showed Gibała ahead in all 18 districts. The highest shares were in the east: 71.8 percent in Wzgórza Krzesławickie, 71.4 percent in Bieńczyce, 69.2 percent in Nowa Huta and 67.5 percent in Mistrzejowice. The narrowest margins were in Zwierzyniec, 53.3 percent to 46.7, and in Stare Miasto, 53.9 to 46.1. Reported shares elsewhere ran from the mid-50s in Krowodrza, Bronowice and Grzegórzki to 60 percent on both Prądnik districts, 59.1 percent in Dębniki and 66 percent in Bieżanów-Prokocim.

Gibała campaigned on city debt, city-hall appointments, ticket prices, a referendum on the clean-transport zone, and limits on short-term tourist lets. Piątkowska tried to separate herself from Miszalski while arguing that links to the national government would help Kraków; she proposed an artificial-intelligence “gigafactory”, more housing for younger residents, and measures aimed at women. Miszalski and Majchrowski both asked voters to back her. Politico called the result a setback for Tusk’s Civic Coalition in Poland’s second-largest city, about a year before the next parliamentary election, even as October surveys still put Civic Coalition first, at 31.9 percent, with the governing camp short of a majority.

Office and relations with the council

Gibała took the oath at a council session on 20 October 2026, in the council chamber. Jakub Kosek, chair of the council, said the change from the earlier date followed a meeting of the council’s main commission.

Miszalski had been removed just two years into his term. Of the 43 council seats, Civic Coalition and The Left together held 23. Gibała, himself a councillor, said residents had “regained their city” and added, “Now let’s put aside our differences and show that we can work together,” which Politico read as an acknowledgement that cooperation with those parties would be required.

Political positions

Planning, greenery and housing

Gibała's local politics treated Kraków as a city to be planned for residents rather than for developers and visitors. In the 2026 campaign his programme said a new general plan should follow residents' interests, not developers' expectations, and that the city should create three large "XXL" parks and small neighbourhood squares. As a councillor he used interpellations against what he called patodeweloperka, including a 2024 case on ul. Horaka in which a single-family house had been split into many micro-flats, with balconies below ground, which he called illegal.

The programme also promised to stop selling municipal flats, which he said had often become private tourist apartments, and to speed repairs of vacant council homes with outside money. In a Gazeta Krakowska survey he "categorically" backed limits on short-term rentals and said he would seek powers for municipalities to restrict them in selected areas. Monika Piątkowska, the joint candidate of the Civic Coalition and the Polish People's Party, also favoured limits, but argued that statute had to authorize them first. In September 2026 the national government approved a bill letting communities ban short-term lets of the kind offered through Airbnb. Her platform instead emphasized more housing for young people.

In the same survey, Gibała was open to enlarging Kraków, for example toward Zielonki; Piątkowska was not. Aleksander Miszalski, removed as mayor in May 2026, answered the anti-developer line by pointing to development business in Gibała's family.

Transport, air and the clean-transport zone

The clean-transport zone that took effect on 1 January 2026 covers about 60 percent of the city. Petrol cars built after 2004 and diesels built since 2014 enter free; older vehicles pay 2.50 zloty an hour or 5 zloty a day, with a ban from 2029. Residents who pay tax in Kraków and bought a non-compliant car before 26 June 2025 are exempt.

The provincial administrative court upheld the scheme as proportionate to protecting health after nitrogen dioxide exceeded the annual limit. Law and Justice MP Andrzej Adamczyk called it a "tax on poverty." Miszalski did not propose scrapping it. In March 2026 he offered narrower relief, including frozen fees and exemptions for the poorest people in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship, while keeping the air-quality aim. A ban on burning coal and wood, in force since 2019 under Jacek Majchrowski, already covered heating.

Miszalski said that in 2022 Gibała had voted to introduce a zone and later campaigned to shrink it. In a September 2026 debate Gibała called the operating zone "fatal," said he had not supported that version, and argued that a 5-zloty fee let heavily polluting cars in anyway. Piątkowska also called it too wide and proposed the second ring road. Michał Drewnicki said he had voted against both earlier resolutions; Left MP Daria Gosek-Popiołek defended the zone on health grounds.

Before the runoff Gibała agreed the boundary should change but said a referendum should decide; Piątkowska was categorical that it should shrink. After Jan Hoffman, a recall initiator, endorsed him, Gibała accepted a pact to limit and "rationalize" the zone, audit the city, keep specialists in the administration, and restore a 20-minute ticket. He later set the referendum for the first half of 2027: keep the present zone or cut it to the strict centre, not abolish it. National law requires a zone in cities above 100,000 people once the nitrogen-dioxide standard is breached, and allows repeal only after three clean years—at the earliest in 2029, and not automatically. In 2025 the aleja Krasińskiego monitor recorded exactly the legal ceiling, 40 micrograms per cubic metre.

On fares, Miszalski partly reversed a March 2026 rise but left a resident monthly pass at 99 zloty, against 90 before and 109 in the draft, after saying the city had "gone a step too far." A 4-zloty ticket shrank from 20 minutes to 15. Gibała campaigned to undo the rises and restore the 20-minute ticket. Piątkowska also wanted lower fares and that ticket, then a charge tied to stops passed.

Wealth, family interests and criticism

Declarations and personal assets

As a councillor of Kraków, Łukasz Gibała filed public asset declarations. The statement for the end of 2025 listed a councillor's allowance of 47,310.46 złoty as his only current income and a mortgage, originally 2 million złoty, with 1,596,988.28 złoty outstanding. TVN24 also reported securities he valued above 1.42 million złoty, cash and small foreign-currency holdings, Upstart shares, a share of a house and parking spaces, and put gross assets near 5.8 million złoty, about 4.2 million after the mortgage. Earlier filings showed about 600,000 złoty from Ductor in 2023 and about 495,000 złoty in 2024. He said he had earned 50,000 złoty a month as its chief executive, was drawing on savings, and had inherited and invested assets after his mother died when he was 14.

He described his main home as one 225-square-metre flat in Wola Justowska, valued at 3.8 million złoty. Rzeczpospolita reported that the land registers showed three adjoining units of 75.67, 73.31 and 75.86 square metres, that for five years he had added areas together, and that he had declared one mortgage although three agreements existed. The paper said legal specialists doubted whether this met the disclosure rules. He said the units were functionally one dwelling and that he had not broken the law.

The Krakowska Grupa Monitorowania Demokracji notified the Central Anticorruption Bureau, alleging that the 2026 declaration concealed income used to repay the mortgage. Polityka reported the notification and his explanation; it did not describe a concluded bureau decision.

On 8 October 2026 the Regional Court in Kraków, on an application by the committee of Civic Coalition senator Monika Piątkowska, ordered him to correct the line "I have never had any debts," from a 21 September interview on the YouTube channel Rynek Krowoderski. Declarations for 2021–2025 showed a mortgage and a loan. The court treated a debt as money borrowed that must be repaid, not only arrears, and said a viewer could have taken the sentence as his whole private position because he also discussed the company's credits. He was ordered to post a correction on Facebook and air one on the channel, and barred from repeating the claim; neither side said he was behind on instalments. He said he had meant no personal debt above 200 million złoty—the company's credit, not his—and his lawyer, Łukasz Szczepan, noted that the mortgage was already disclosed.

Family companies and alleged conflicts

Polityka, citing that monitoring group's reading of registers, land books and accounts, described lending inside Alti Plus SA, wholly owned by his father, Leszek Gibała, and described by TVN24 as an alcohol distributor. At the end of 2024 Alti Plus had lent about 457 million złoty from its own funds, without bank credit or bonds. Ductor owed it 260.4 million złoty, and Verdano Commercial—until 2021 linked to Platinium Investment—was entered in 116 land registers in five voivodeships. The authors said this was not a legal judgment, but that a mayoralty would raise a conflict question because family assets, including agricultural plots that could become warehouses or housing, lay just outside the city.

Gibała founded Ductor in 2015. It owns Fiberlab, near Kraków, which makes 3D-printer filament and composite boards. TVN24 reported a 50 million złoty loan from Alti Plus at the start and debt of 234 million złoty in 2024; he said the money paid for plants outside the city so there would be no conflict of interest. That year he transferred his shares to his father and they passed to Alti Plus. He said the assets exceeded the liabilities, that he afterwards held no company shares, and that the firm would keep financing the association Kraków dla Mieszkańców for the council term.

The association spent nearly 1.9 million złoty on the referendum that removed mayor Aleksander Miszalski; Gibała said the money came from Ductor. Referendum spending was not capped, while each mayoral committee in Kraków was limited to about 400,000 złoty. MEP Jagna Marczułajtis-Walczak and former mayor Jacek Majchrowski called the spending an attempt to "buy Kraków"; he said prior wealth was an advantage and that residents still had to vote.

In the 2024 campaign he said his brother Bartosz had no developer ties except loans, including to Activ. Demagog found that Bartosz held 99 percent of Verdano Commercial, whose core registered business was letting and lending and which owned Activ 5, registered mainly for construction, and that he had been vice-president of Activ Wodna 34 until May 2022. Bartosz said he had built no flats and that the stake only secured a 2021 loan. Activ Investment's chief executive, Thomas Podstawski, said the role was financing, repaid before profit from flat sales, and that calling Bartosz a developer did not match Activ's experience; Demagog could not confirm some reported Verdano housing schemes.

In a 2026 debate, Left candidate Daria Gosek-Popiołek said a mayor could make the family's suburban plots more attractive. Gibała replied that he had invested outside Kraków to avoid that conflict, unlike Majchrowski's institution in the city and hostel businesses Miszalski ran as a councillor.

Personal life

Łukasz Gibała grew up in Kraków, on Prądnik Czerwony. The family lived first in a high-rise block on ulica Majora and later in a small house his parents built there, and he attended Primary School No. 2. His mother died when he was a teenager. Speaking on TVN24 in October 2026, he said she died when he was about 14 and that he inherited some property from her; he described his father, Leszek Gibała, as a very wealthy businessman. He has a brother. In March 2024 he said that his father and brother ran their own businesses and that he had no influence over them. He is a nephew of the former deputy prime minister Jarosław Gowin. He has described the relationship as distant: in the same 2024 interview he said they were barely in contact and had last seen each other only in passing several years earlier.

In 2009 he married Beata Gibała. News profiles state that the marriage later ended in divorce, without reporting a date, and that he then began a relationship with Adrianna Siudy, known as Ada. Profiles consistently describe Siudy as his partner, not his wife. She has said that they met when she moderated a debate on the concerns of young people in which Gibała, Mateusz Klinowski and Anna Grodzka took part, and that he afterwards asked her to work with him. Before that she had sat on the national board of Twój Ruch and had been a vice-chair of Ruch Młodych, the party's youth organization. They then worked together in his association Logiczna Alternatywa, where she was a board member responsible for marketing and contact with the media; the professional relationship later became a personal one. She has said that working together in Kraków dla Mieszkańców was also a way for them to see each other during the day.

Since 26 June 2024 Siudy has been president of the management board of Ductor, a Kraków company Gibała had previously managed. The firm produces materials for 3D printing, including filaments. On the evening of the 11 October 2026 mayoral runoff, at a gathering in the former Forum hotel, he brought her onto the stage and said, "Bardzo ci Ada dziękuję, bo wiem, ile cię to kosztowało" ("Thank you so much, Ada — I know how much this has cost you"). He lives on Wola Justowska. He has said that he and Siudy live near the Rudawa embankments, which he called a favourite place.