The 2025 Zabrze mayoral election was held on 10 and 24 August 2025 in Zabrze to fill a vacancy left by the recall of Agnieszka Rupniewska of the liberal Civic Coalition (KO) on 12 May 2025. Independent narrowly defeated (KO) in the second round, leading to KO losing its mayoral seat in Zabrze.
, mayor of Zabrze between 2006 and 2024, lost her position in the 2024 mayoral election, attaining 42.15% of the second round vote. She was defeated by Agnieszka Rupniewska of the Civic Coalition (KO). However, Rupniewska soon ran into popular discontent regarding group firings, budgetary issues and the lengthening privatization of Górnik Zabrze, Zabrze's local football club, and the residents of Zabrze collected 14 thousand signatures under an initiative for a recall referendum against the mayor and city council.
On 11 May 2025, the city of Zabrze held a recall referendum for its mayor and city council. The recall referendums required turnout of 3/5ths of the number of votes cast in the 2024 local elections to be valid, with the threshold being set at 25.9 thousand votes for the mayoral recall referendum (3/5ths of the second round votes in the 2024 mayoral election) and 29.6 thousand votes for the city council recall referendum (3/5ths of the votes in the election for city council). The required threshold was met for the mayoral recall referendum, but the city council recall referendum came 112 votes short of success. The option to recall won overwhelmingly in both referendums. Ewa Weber was designated as the acting mayor of Zabrze on 17 May by Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
The success of the referendum also gained attention in relation to the concurrently ongoing 2025 presidential election, of which the candidate of the opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, Karol Nawrocki, described the successful recall as a "symbolic referendum on the Tusk government". According to an OGB exit poll, 59% of people partaking in the referendum held negative views of the incumbent national government, and 18% held positive views.
Prominent campaign issues included the city's debt, privatization of the local Górnik Zabrze football club, and the future role of Zabrze in the Upper Silesian-Dàbrowa Basin Metropolis.
During the election campaign, national politicians campaigned for mayoral candidates. Jarosà Âaw Kaczyà Âski, the chairman of Law and Justice (PiS), arrived in Zabrze on 3 August to endorse Borys Borówka. Leader of the Confederation, Sà Âawomir Mentzen organized a rally on 24 July for his party's candidate, Sebastian DziÃÂbowski. Rafaà  Kobos was endorsed by former mayor , and ran from the "Effective for Zabrze and Maà Âgorzata Maà Âka-Szulik" committee. The Civic Platform's (PO) candidate, Ewa Weber, was attacked for having ties with Gliwice, a neighboring city with negative connotations in Zabrze. Weber was previously the vice-mayor of Gliwice.
During a pre-election debate, Borówka gave Weber a scarf of Piast Gliwice, a rival football club to the local Górnik Zabrze, calling out her Gliwice roots. In response, Weber displayed she was wearing a Górnik Zabrze shirt.
The electoral calendar was:
An exit poll conducted on 11 May for the recall referendums released by OGB showed the voting intention of voters in a hypothetical first round election:
In the first round, no candidate scored a majority of votes, with Weber coming in first by a wide margin, and à »bikowski coming second narrowly ahead of Borówka and DziÃÂbowski. In the second round, à »bikowski narrowly defeated Weber with a margin of 107 votes.
Politicians of the right and left opposition celebrated à »bikowski's narrow victory, with analysts predicting the successful ousting of the Civic Coalition from the mayoralty in Zabrze to be a motivating force for organization of more referendums against the coalition's local government officials.