This is a sub-article to Białystok Białystok, like other major cities in Poland, is a City with powiat rights ().Dz.U. z 1998 r. nr 91, poz. 578 The Legislative power in the city is vested in the unicameral parliament, the Białystok City Council (), which has 28 members.Statut Miasta Białegostoku Council members are elected directly every four years, one of whom is the mayor, or President of Białystok (). Like most legislative bodies, the Białystok City Council divides itself into committees which have the oversight of various functions of the city government. Bills passed by a simple majority are sent to the mayor, who may sign them into law. If the mayor vetoes a bill, the council has 30 days to override the veto by a two-thirds majority vote. The current President of Białystok, elected for his first term in 2006, is Tadeusz Truskolaski.Prezydent miasta, zastępcy ("Białystok City Mayor, Deputy"). Retrieved 2009-07-16.
It is also the seat of government for the Podlaskie Voivodeship. The city is represented by several members of both houses of the Polish Parliament (Sejm and Senat) from the Białystok constituency. Białystok is represented by the Podlaskie and Warmian-Masurian constituency of the European Parliament.
History Second Polish Republic The first resemblance of self-government in Białystok was the Temporary City Committee led by Józef Karol Puchalski, established at the end of 1918 and later approved by the Government Commissioner. The Temporary City Committee was selected according to nationality: 8 Jews, 6 Poles, 1 Russian and 1 German. Unfortunately, the sessions were dominated by Polish-Jewish conflict.
In independent Białystok, the Provisional City Committee faced significant challenges. It had to address the challenges of ensuring the safety of its residents and providing them with food and fuel. Besides the dire economic situation, the growing ethnic conflict also proved a significant obstacle. Józef Zeligman's article, published in Gołos Bielastok, was widely commented on in the city. This was a Russian-language newspaper aimed at the Jewish intelligentsia. Its publisher and editor-in-chief wrote that Białystok was threatened by the prospect of endless occupation, only with a change of occupiers: the Germans will leave, the legionnaires will come, the legionnaires will leave, the Bolsheviks will come, the Bolsheviks will leave, the allies will come". Puchalski's position clearly weakened when Napoleon Cydzik took over the position of Government Commissioner on March 1, 1919. His main task was to prepare the local government elections, which were to be held in September. From the very beginning of his term, Cydzik marginalized the role of the Provisional City Committee. Despite the fact that in joint photographs he always sat next to the chairman Józef Puchalski, he was politically weak. The distance was also compounded by Cydzik's strangeness and lack of connections with the residents. The then elites of Białystok's local government had known each other for decades. Some had even served on the city council during the Tsarist era. After the elections, although the main purpose of his mission had been fulfilled, Cydzik continued in his position. At the turn of 1919 and 1920, he frequently traveled to Warsaw, summoned there to report on the local situation. In Białystok, not a week passed without him commissarially regulating the city's functioning. He approved fines imposed on local merchants for violating trading hours regulations and punished property owners who failed to clear snow and ice from sidewalks. In 1920 he was removed from his position and moved to the Voivodeship Office.
Social and ethnical disputes flared up between the Poles and the Jews, among other things, over the language of the proceedings as many Jewish delegates didn't speak Polish fluently enough, hence they asked to be allowed to use Yiddish, at least for a while. Their Polish colleagues and the Government Commissioner were unyielding demanding that only Polish would be spoken in public in Poland. Moreover, the Jewish community leaders complained that contrary to earlier agreements - they were passed over when filling managerial positions in the city administration. On the top of it was the regulation of the Commissioner General of the Eastern Lands of May 10, 1919, on the annexation of 21 nearby villages and summer resorts to the city (the so-called Greater Białystok). The urban area increased from 2,700 ha to 4400 ha, and above all - which was the point - its national and religious structure changed. The inhabitants of the annexed settlements were almost exclusively Poles Christian, a thing Jewish community treated as a political maneuver aimed at reducing its electoral chances.
Ultimately, the Jewish community boycotted the first elections to the Białystok City Council held on September 7, 1919. Only 12% of the city's eligible residents took part in the vote. To obtain a mandate, the support of only a few dozen voters was enough. As a result, there was not a single representative of national minorities in the Białystok local government. The first president was Bolesław Szymański. By-elections were held on December 13, 1925. This time, all national and political groups entered the fight for 9 vacant seats in the City Council (in place of councilors lost their mandates during their term). Six mandates were won by candidates of Jewish nationality. The United Jewish List's election staff reached for the first time in the city's history for modern forms of agitation, so-called electric advertisements placed on buildings and cinema advertisements displayed before screenings in the Apollo cinema.
Despite the additions, the Council was still criticized for not representing the entire community. This became the reason for the dissolution of the Białystok city administration by the Minister of Internal Affairs and the ordering of new elections for December 11, 1927. These were the first elections in Białystok held without any formal restrictions and with the full participation of all political groups. 13 separate lists were submitted with the communist list being invalidated. The election result was as follows: 21 Jews, 19 Poles and 1 German. In the new Council, the Jewish groups concluded an agreement with the Polish Socialist Party to prevent the right wing from entering the Board. The president was the retired colonel Michał Ostrowski (commander of the Białystok garrison in 1925-1926), and the vice-president - the Zionist Wolf Hepner. Following the dissolving of the city council in mid-1927, elections were set to December 11 that year. The new city council was dominated by Union of the Polish Electoral Committee list led by Bolesław Szymański which received 8 seats.
Throughout the interwar period, the socialists also had a significant group of supporters in Białystok. Due to the working-class nature of the city, the people's parties had little influence. At the end of the 1930s, there were two main influential political camps: the ruling party and the democratic opposition. After 1936, the activity of left-wing parties increased, whose representatives won as many as 16 seats in the elections to the City Council just before the outbreak of the war. In 1928 as a results of political infighting Ostrowski lost his position to Wincenty Hermanowski. On August 1, 1932, the Voivode Marian Zyndram-Kościałkowski dissolved the City Council, because it was unable to maintain a balanced budget. The city was managed by the government commissioner Seweryn Nowakowski, who moved from Częstochowa. He also held the office of the mayor of Białystok after the subsequent local elections in 1934 and 1939. The largest modernization works in the city in the pre-war period are associated with his name. In the years 1919-1927, the orthodox Jewish party was in first place, only giving way in the subsequent elections to the Nonpartisan Bloc for Cooperation with the Government, which during the Sanation enjoyed the greatest support in Białystok in the elections of 1930. Among the Polish parties, the Polish Christian Democratic Party had the greatest influence until 1928, which then lost support to the Nonpartisan Bloc for Cooperation with the Government. Throughout the interwar period, the socialists also had a significant group of supporters in Białystok. Due to the working-class nature of the city, the people's parties had also some influence. In the May 1934 local elections, the BBWR-led bloc won with 23 deputies, followed by Zionists (12 deputies), Bunds-PPS block (7 deputies) and the National Democracy list (6 deputies). Altogether the new convocation of the city council included 30 Poles, 17 Jews and one German.
During the interbellum period, the National Party was also active in the city. For many years, the city and the district in the district structure formed one district government. The city was a municipal branch of the National Party. In June 1935, the party's Municipal Board was established, headed by Bronisław Horodko, who was succeeded in 1939 by Kazimierz Kornacki. Hipolit Kaliszewski was also a well-known national activist. In the city, among the high school youth, there was a National Commune Organization with about 250 members. According to the report of the Voivode of Białystok Voivodeship, Henryk Ostaszewski, of April 26, 1939, the National Party in Białystok had about 500 members.
In May 1939, at the 1938–39 Polish local elections 48 deputies were elected to the Białystok City Council under the following division: PPS and class trade unions - 6, Bund and class trade unions - 10, Jewish Democratic Bloc ( - 3, General Jewish Bloc () - 3, Christian National-Economic Electoral Committee - 21 and National Party, 5.
Polish People's Republic The waves of demand for reforming the existing system, which occurred in Białystok in parallel to other cities in Poland could be seen in the growing posture of Solidanosc organization. Białystok's "Solidarity" tried to gain a foothold in the Municipal National Council (). During the 18th plenary session of the Municipal National Council, which took place on October 15, 1981. The session was attended by representatives of "Solidarity" in Białystok: Bernard Bujwicki, Edmund Lajdorf, Jerzy Zegarski and Stanisław Guzowicz. They took an active part in the discussion on the election of the president of Białystok. The introduction of martial law interrupted the process of democratization of city councils. The next elections to the Municipal National Council were held on June 30, 1988, based on the new provisions of the Act of June 16, 1988 amending the Act on the system of national councils and local government. The MRN has been entrusted with some of the competences and tasks of the Provincial National Council. The term of office of the MRN lasted two years. It was a period of significant political and social changes. On August 21, 1989, Jerzy Czaban, who established cooperation with the MRN, took over as president following a recommendation from Janusz Andrzejewski from Solidarity Citizens' Committee.