Jakub Chełstowski

Jakub Piotr Chełstowski (born 7 April 1981) is a Polish executive and politician who served as the eighth marshal of Silesia and as a member of the Silesian Voivodeship Sejmik from 2018 to 2024. A member of Yes! For Poland (T!DPL) since 2022, he was previously a member of Law and Justice (PiS) from 2017 to 2022 and Tychy Our Little Homeland, a localist party in Tychy, from 2006 to 2017, which he led from 2014 to 2017.

Chełstowski was born in Tychy in 1981. He joined Tychy Our Little Homeland in 2006, becoming its vice-president before getting elected to represent the party on Tychy City Council in the 2010 Polish local elections, where he became leader of the opposition and feuded with Tychy's Civic Platform (PO) mayor , accusing him of corruption and mishandling funds. He became president of Tychy Our Little Homeland ahead of the 2014 local elections, where he was re-elected to a second term on the council and unsuccessfully stood against Dziuba for the mayoralty in an electoral pact with the Silesian Autonomy Movement (RAŚ), coming in second place with 18.76% of the vote to Dziuba's 64.76%.

From 2015, Chełstowski associated himself with PiS in Silesia, formally joining the party and leaving Tychy Our Little Homeland in 2017. In 2018, he was elected to represent PiS on the Silesian Voivodeship Sejmik, which also elected him as the eighth marshal of Silesia, succeeding PO's Wojciech Saługa. He defected from PiS to join T!DPL in 2022 but continued to serve as marshal until 2024, when he was succeeded by Saługa who was elected for another term in the role.

Early life and career Jakub Piotr Chełstowski was born in Tychy on 7 April 1981, the son of Zbigniew and Anna. He studied at in Katowice, where he graduated with a master's degree in social science and pedagogy, and at SGH Warsaw School of Economics, where he received a postgraduate degree in business management.

Chełstowski began his career at the Mining Electronics Plant of Tychy, where he worked as an electronics engineer. He then worked at an automotive factory in the Katowice Special Economic Zone. After this, in the late 2000s, he worked as a community organiser for the Teresa housing cooperative in Tychy. He served as a probation officer at Tychy District Court from 2007 to 2014 and later became a director of ownership supervision and strategic assets at the Silesia Financial Society. He also became president of the Tychy-based Vistula Tourist Agency.

Early political career

Early activities in Tychy In 2006, Chełstowski joined the Tychy Nasza Mała Ojczyzna party, one of the main local political parties in Tychy alongside the governing electoral list of Tychy's Civic Platform mayor , after watching televised Tychy City Council debates and agreeing with its policy platform. Chełstowski was successfully elected to represent District 3 on the council for Tychy Our Little Homeland, where he initiated a public feud with Dziuba, accusing him of corruption and mishandling public funds. Chełstowski also reported Dziuba's head of Tychy Municipal Cultural Centre, , to the prosecutor's office after the Audit Department of Tychy City Council discovered significant financial irregularities in the public spending for the centre from 2012 to 2013, but this case was also dismissed in 2015. Chełstowski and the rest of the party opposed a coalition, and in March 2014 Konieczna and her ally Stefan Moćko left the party in protest, citing Chełstowski's campaign against her and a difference in political views. In the local elections, he also led Tychy Our Little Homeland as its lead candidate for the city council election. He criticised the administration of Dziuba for corruption and nepotism and also accused the council of failing to maintain checks and balances against him, highlighting that several senior city councillors and their family members had taken up senior positions in municipal bodies and agencies.

The mayoral election was won by Dziuba, who was re-elected to his fourth term as mayor in the first round of the contest with 25,801 votes, or 64.76% of the vote. Chełstowski came in second place with 7,474 votes, or 18.76%, ahead of Grzegorz Kołodziejczyk from Law and Justice (PiS) who won 12.79% of the vote. In the city council election, Chełstowski was re-elected to a second term on the city council after Tychy Our Little Homeland's list came in third place with 5,933 votes, or 15.74% of the vote, winning 4 of 25 seats, behind PiS with 7 seats and Dziuba and PO's lists with 13 seats. Tychy Our Little Homeland came ahead of the list of Barbara Konieczna, Chełstowski's predecessor as party leader who decided to run on her own list, who won the final seat on the council.

At the end of the election campaign, Chełstowski was targeted by an anonymous libel campaign against him and his family, alleged to have been perpetrated by , the brother of Tychy City Council chairman Michał Gramatyka and a campaigner for Mayor Dziuba's re-election campaign. Chełstowski reported the matter to the police and initiated a private prosecution against Maciej Gramatyka. The case went to court, where Gramatyka apologised to Chełstowski but pled not guilty. Chełstowski and Gramatyka failed to reach a settlement, and Gramatyka was eventually acquitted in 2015. In 2015, the family were involved in a car crash when the engine stalled on a busy road after an unknown perpetrator sabotaged their car by pouring sugar into the petrol tank. A police investigation into the incident failed to find the perpetrator, who has since remained unidentified.