Ain\u0101rs \u0160lesers, leader of the party Latvia First (LPV), which won the Riga City Council elections, does not recognize the results of the municipal elections, claiming that Saturday\u2019s vote was \u201cstolen\u201d and therefore a new election should be held.<\/p>\n
In a live broadcast on social media this morning, \u0160lesers announced that he does not accept the results of the elections in the capital. However, he did not clarify whether LPV has officially contested the results with the Central Election Commission (CEC). According to him, everything possible was done on Saturday to prevent him from leading the city council.<\/p>\n
The politician is convinced that the election was \u201cstolen,\u201d and therefore the party will take action to push for new \u2013 extraordinary \u2013 elections in Riga.<\/p>\n
\u0160lesers emphasized that he cannot trust law enforcement institutions, which he claims are under the control of the New Unity party. He also believes that various forms of repression will be directed against him and his supporters to silence them.<\/p>\n
LPV will submit a demand for the resignation of the government in the Saeima, and will also present the same request to President Edgars Rink\u0113vi\u010ds.<\/p>\n
The LPV also stated in its press release that the party will submit a request to the Prosecutor General\u2019s Office regarding \u201cthe falsification of results on election night\u201d. At the same time, the faction indicates that tomorrow, the 11th of June, it will submit a request to the Saeima for the resignation of Prime Minister Evika Sili\u0146a (JV).<\/p>\n
\u201cThis government, led by Prime Minister Evika Sili\u0146a, is no longer legitimate and must take full responsibility for the falsification of the election results,\u201d the faction said, adding that \u201cthe country needs a new professional government that can organise extraordinary local elections in Riga\u201d.<\/p>\n
A \u201cnationwide protest\u201d against the stolen election is also planned. The event will take place on Sunday, the 15th of June, at 3:00 PM at the Freedom Monument in Riga. \u0160lesers stressed that as many people as possible should attend so that the authorities cannot claim that \u201cthere are too few of us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI do not recognize the election results, we will not accept fraud,\u201d \u0160lesers concluded.<\/p>\n
As reported, the vote counting in the 2025 municipal elections on Saturday and into Sunday night encountered technical issues. Problems with the operation of polling stations due to technical failures were also reported earlier in the week during early voting.<\/p>\n
At present, no internal investigation into the vote counting issues has been launched, as all necessary and available information must first be gathered, said State Chancellery Director Raivis Kronbergs on Monday after an inter-institutional task force meeting.<\/p>\n
He noted that as recently as last week, there was confidence that everything would function properly, as there had been no indication that anything might go wrong. \u201cIf we hadn\u2019t been sure of that, we would have made decisions earlier,\u201d he added, reiterating that there were no signs that \u201cthe system would fail.\u201d<\/p>\n
Central Election Commission (CEC) Chair Krist\u012bne Saul\u012bte stated that \u201cif there had been even the slightest indication that the systems were not ready or something might not work, the responsible authorities would have immediately decided to count the votes manually.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were no indications, so we proceeded with the plan,\u201d Saul\u012bte asserted.<\/p>\n
The CEC chair pointed out that all election results have been confirmed and there is currently no reason to believe they are inaccurate. To ensure result accuracy, there are \u201cseveral control systems\u201d in place, she said.<\/p>\n
Speaking about her own responsibility, Saul\u012bte said she is ready to take full responsibility for areas within her competence, but currently, the discussion is about technical issues that are not within the CEC\u2019s purview.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the State Agency for Digital Affairs (VDAA) has launched a detailed investigation at all levels of the agency\u2019s responsibility \u2013 from the employees directly responsible for the election system to developers and auditors \u2013 into the reasons behind the slow processing of ballot scans, VDAA Administrative Department cooperation project manager Agnese Tka\u010denko told LETA.<\/p>\n
Smart Administration and Regional Development Minister Inga B\u0113rzi\u0146a (New Unity) announced on Monday that she would suspend VDAA Director Jorens Liopa from his position.<\/p>\n
Liopa himself stated on Monday morning, after the inter-institutional task force meeting, that he had not yet seen the announcement, only heard about it. He also noted that there is now a need to re-evaluate how projects of this scale are implemented.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not within my competence to assess the minister\u2019s actions,\u201d Liopa said in response to a question on whether he thought the minister acted prematurely.<\/p>\n
Also read:\u00a0New power in Riga? New Unity and Progressives seek common ground<\/a><\/p>\n Follow us on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0X<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ain\u0101rs \u0160lesers, leader of the party Latvia First (LPV), which won the Riga City Council elections, does not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[91],"tags":[12959,7311,12960,332,169,12961,12962,12963,4201,168,12964],"class_list":["post-18373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-riga","tag-ainars-slesers","tag-election","tag-extraordinary-election","tag-featured","tag-latvia","tag-latvia-first","tag-lpv","tag-municipal-election","tag-prime-minister","tag-riga","tag-saeima"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}