Four votes bought with booze and cash during municipal elections / Article

LSM previously reported that on October 1, the State Security Service (VDD) asked the prosecutor’s office to start criminal proceedings against a Latvian citizen for buying votes in this year’s local elections in one of the parishes in the Jelgava region.

The prosecutor’s office told the LETA news agency that, according to the indictment, the person influenced the will of four voters by bribing them; namely, three voters were given alcohol, while one voter was given cash.

The accused was not a candidate himself, but is a relative of a candidate.

The prosecutor’s office did not disclose which party’s voters were bribed. “Regarding the question of which political party (list) the vote buying was for, it should be noted that the legislator has established criminal liability for the unlawful and deliberate obstruction of a person’s right to freely elect deputies through vote buying, in every case, regardless of which party the influenced voters voted for. Thus, the question of a specific political party’s involvement in the criminal offence is neither decisive nor does it affect the ongoing criminal proceedings and cannot be commented on in more detail,” the prosecutor’s office stated.

The VDD previously reported that the person had organised the transport of voters to the polling station in his private vehicle.

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