KNAB issues four warnings over unauthorized election campaigning

Latvia’s Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau has issued four warnings over unauthorized pre-election campaigning, LSM reported. The bureau said it had received about 50 reports from residents, including concerns that administrative resources may have been used in the campaign.

KNAB representative Vineta Ostrovska warned that election candidates must not discreetly place campaign materials in municipal institutions. She said institutions themselves had also reported such cases.

The warnings were issued to a municipality over a council chair’s participation in a party event and distribution of leaflets during working hours; to a state city council over the publication of party campaign material on a neighbourhood residents’ centre’s social media account; to a court hearing interpreter for distributing pens bearing a party logo in a courthouse; and to a political party over leaflets placed in a municipal cultural centre.

KNAB has not disclosed which municipalities or parties were involved.

The bureau is also continuing to examine the possible use of administrative resources in the campaign by Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs and the United List, which he represents.

KNAB said parties were actively meeting voters and that the role of money in this campaign appeared to be smaller. Ostrovska attributed this partly to restrictions introduced by social media platforms, including Facebook and Meta, on placing paid election campaign material. Parties can therefore publish only unpaid campaign material on social media, she said.

The pre-election campaign period before the elections to Latvia’s 15th Saeima began on June 6.