Kraków election panel bars Confederation mayoral candidate over invalid signatures

Kraków’s Municipal Election Commission rejected Confederation candidate Bartosz Bocheńczak’s bid for mayor on Monday after deeming his submission of nearly 5,000 signatures insufficient, with only about 2,950 deemed valid.
Bocheńczak announced the decision in a post on X, accepting full responsibility and apologizing to volunteers and supporters. “I thought nearly 5,000 signatures would provide a sufficient margin of safety. It turned out I was wrong,” he wrote. He added that the system’s rules were clear and that his team should have collected and verified more signatures.
Sławomir Mentzen, a Confederation leader and head of the New Hope party, responded by removing Bocheńczak from his role as president of the Kraków district and suspending all local party officials involved, referring their cases to the party’s internal court to determine individual responsibility. “Despite my sympathy for Bartosz Bocheńczak and admiration for his campaign efforts, I cannot ignore this failure,” Mentzen wrote on X.
The commission had been verifying signatures for Bocheńczak, as well as for Daria Gosek-Popiołek of the Left and Sławomir Pietrzyk of the SDPL, with final decisions announced on Tuesday.
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