Allegations of 2014 election result falsifying attempts by Unity party

During the 2014 Saeima elections, the then Secretary General of the "Unity" political party, Artis Kampars, allegedly asked the election software provider – information technology (IT) company "SOAAR" – to falsify the election results, the head of SOAAR Renārs Kadžulis claimed on the Latvian Television program "What's Happening in Latvia?/Kas notiek Latvijā? (KNL)" on April 24.

It has been reported that SOAAR has accused Unity of illegal use of the system developed by the company in the party's congresses. The company claims that SOAAR's technical support has cost the party tens of thousands of euros over eight years, but the political force has not paid for it.

"There were a lot of oddities. Unity behaved, I would say, like political racketeers. During the 2014 parliamentary elections, on election night, suddenly Artis Kampars called me, took me outside and said – it looks like our chairwoman Solvita Āboltiņa will not be elected. We need you to make sure that she is elected.

"I say, do you understand what you are asking, you are asking to falsify the election results. I will never go down that path in my life. And I refused. [Kampars] said - well, then a lot of things will happen," Kadžulis claimed on LTV.

He said that these allegations could only be proved by the fact that Āboltiņa was not elected in the end, but entered the 12th Saeima after Jānis Junkurs, elected from the "Unity" list, immediately resigned from the Saeima. He announced that he had been offered a job in a Hong Kong company. However, his declaration as a public official did not show any job in Hong Kong, which led to the conclusion that he left the Saeima to make way for Āboltiņa.

Kadžulis said that he had reported the matter to the Constitution Protection Bureau (SAB), but got no response. "I reported it several times to the SAB. Do you think something happened? It's like a wall there, just like in the Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau (KNAB)," said Kadžulis.

The current Minister of Finance, Arvils Ašeradens (New Unity), after hearing what Kadžulis had to say, pointed out that interfering in the elections would be a serious offense and that these allegations should therefore be checked.

Meanwhile, Iveta Kažoka, director of the Providus think tank, said on the program that it was difficult to believe the allegations while stressing that law enforcement authorities had so far not prioritized "investigating such serious offenses, which are particularly harmful to society", but had instead looked at easily found errors in political parties' accounts.

"It is hard to believe that things have been done so cynically. I have my doubts whether this is really the case, but I see a big problem that we cannot verify in a normal way what really happened", said Kažoka, pointing out that the public usually only finds out about more serious offenses years later, when investigations can no longer take place. "This is a big, systemic problem that affects not only the KNAB."

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