Prime Minister Evika Silina (New Unity) will ask law enforcement authorities to investigate the public allegation that almost ten years ago the then secretary general of Unity party, Artis Kampars, asked Renars Kadzulis, the head of the election software provider – information technology company SOAAR – to forge the results of the 12th Saeima elections in order to ensure the seat for the party’s then chairwoman Solvita Aboltina at the parliament.
Kadzulis made the allegation on Wednesday evening on the Latvian Television (LTV) program Kas Notiek Latvija? (What’s Happening in Latvia?).
On Thursday morning, Silina posted on Facebook that Kadzulis’ statement about an attempt to influence democratic procedures should not be left without attention. “Either it happened and one has to answer to the law, or it did not happen and the other has to answer to the law. The opinion of the institutions protecting Latvia’s constitutional order and security must be very clear – there must be both judgement and action,” the prime minister said.
She has therefore committed herself to requesting information from the state security authorities and to calling on the Prosecutor General to investigate the allegations.
Kadzulis, who is accused of fraud in the procurement of the Central Election Commission, said on the TV program that on the night of the 12th Saeima elections in autumn 2014, Kampars had called him for a chat and expressed concern that Aboltina might not have enough votes to get into the Saeima. “We need you to make sure she gets elected,” Kadsulis allegedly recounted Kampars saying ten years ago.
“I say, do you understand what you are asking, you are asking to falsify the election results. I will never set foot on that path in my life. And I refused,” Kadzulis said.
He said that these allegations could only be proved by the fact that Aboltina was not elected in the end, but entered the 12th Saeima after Janis Junkurs, elected from the Unity list, resigned from the Saeima. He announced that he had received a job offer in a Hong Kong company. However, his declaration as a public official did not show a job with a Hong Kong company, which led to the conclusion that he had left the Saeima to make way for Aboltina.
Kadzulis said that he had reported the matter to the Constitution Protection Bureau (SAB), but did not receive any response. “I reported it several times to the SAB. Do you think something happened? It is like a wall there, just like in the Corruption Prevention Bureau (KNAB). At one point, hands come down to report something because nobody does anything,” said Kadzulis.
Latvian commercial TV3′ television reported earlier that Unity had used the SOAAR system for voting at its congresses free of charge for eight years. The KNAB has launched a departmental inquiry into this.
The prosecutor’s office is currently investigating fraud in an IT procurement organized by the CEC. Kadzulis is one of the accused in this case. The company he heads has repeatedly won tenders from the CEC and the Office for Citizenship and Migration Affairs.
According to Firmas.lv, SOAAR is owned equally by Kadzulis and Leonards Survilo. In 2020, the company’s turnover was EUR 1.12 million and its profit was EUR 675,000, while no data is available for later years.
Source: BNS
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