Warsaw mayor mocked for pressuring DJ to change music

WARSAW, Poland — Warsaw’s mayor has come under criticism after a video emerged of him demanding that DJs at a night club change their music, seeming to leverage his influence by stating “it’s my city.”

Rafal Trzaskowski, who was the opposition candidate in an unsuccessful presidential bid this summer, was attending a friend’s birthday party in a trendy club on the weekend when the video was reportedly taken of him trying to persuade the DJs to play funk music to dance to.

The DJs told Trzaskowski and his friends that it was against their policy to take requests and did not change the music.

The incident has provoked serious criticism as well as mockery. Some said it was not acceptable behaviour for Trzaskowski, who is the deputy head of the centrist opposition Civic Platform party but plans to start his own political movement soon.

“To be Warsaw mayor and former presidential candidate aspiring to be the leader of the opposition and founder of a new movement and to blow it all in one night out while tipsy just because the music did not suit him. That’s an achievement, even in Polish politics,” tweeted Andrzej Gajcy, a journalist for the Onet news site.

Other commentators defended the mayor.

Trzaskowski has not directly responded to the criticism.

The Associated Press