Two developments heavily impacted the national political scene at the time, which had a major impact on local politics: the disintegration and defeat of the Solidarity camp in the 1993 Polish parliamentary election, and the formation of a new ruling coalition, composed of left-wing parties originating from the former communist regime that abandoned further reforms of the country's territorial system.

[1] For the first time, local government elections were, at least in cities with more than 40,000 inhabitants, clearly linked to nationwide party divisions.

As a result, 62% of councillors elected in multi-mandate districts came from lists submitted by political parties and their coalitions.

The left-wing government of Waldemar Pawlak did not evoke strong feelings from the general population, and was relatively bereft of political conflicts.

[2] In small towns and municipalities, the public did not require special advertising and self-presentation from candidates, although they sometimes appeared in the local press.

Candidates who were well-known in their districts were limited to collecting signatures and informal meetings in small groups.

In multi-mandate districts there were posters promoting individuals, and only a few chose to appear in the local media, but TV election programmes were characterised by low appeal.

According to the CBOS polls, the intensity of political campaign heavily varied between urban and rural constituencies.

In large cities (500,000 people or more), only 45% did, and in the countryside only 10% of correspondents considered the political campaign noticeable.

Andrzej Piasecki wrote that most committees contained candidates with centre-right political views.

This was confirmed by the estimates of Polish political scientist Dominik Sieklucki, who calculated that the SLD had won 27% of council seats, while the PSL's share was 18%.

One of the leading issues during the election was decommunization - many streets had been renamed, which was seen as controversial and confusing by most voters.

Some candidates addressed this issue by pledging to not change the street plaques, thus keeping the old socialist names.

Media discussed the mysteriousness of the names of many election committees, such as "Alliance for ..." or "City League".

[12] The capitalist reforms, rising unemployment and lack of prospects also translated into growing social pessimism.