Rafał Trzaskowski, the mayor of Warsaw and likely presidential candidate for Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s liberal Civic Coalition in next year’s elections, has given the go-ahead for the Independence Day March, for which he had denied permission in mid-October.
On October 14, City Hall had cited safety concerns and irregularities in the application and had rejected the event. In past years the Warsaw march had been marred by clashes with police and isolated incidents of racist slogans and banners.
The march takes place every year on November 11, the day Poland reclaimed its independence in 1918. It attracts tens of thousands of participants, many of whom are Polish families demonstrating their patriotism by waving the Polish national flag.
The event this year has been backed by the largest opposition party, the Conservatives PiS, in the aftermath of government prosecutors’ searches of the offices of the group responsible for organising the march.
Given the unity on the Polish Right in supporting the march, Trzaskowski has decided to allow it to go ahead. All of those supporting it had said it would proceed regardless of the mayor’s decision.
“As previously announced by the mayor, a duly submitted application, which did not raise any legal doubts, was registered as any other gathering,” City Hall’s spokeswoman Monika Beuth told state press agency PAP to explain the mayor’s change of heart.
Bartosz Malewski, who chairs the Independence March Association, wrote on X on October 23 that the event would now be a “legal gathering”, which was a “victory for common sense”.
