Election commission finds no record of Nemunas Dawn payment to member

Lithuania’s Central Electoral Commission has no record of the Nemunas Dawn political party paying its member Laura Matjošaitytė, but its chair says reports about her consultations for the party have damaged the commission’s reputation, LRT reported.

“The political party Nemunas Dawn has not registered any expenses for Laura Matjošaitytė, either during the political campaign or in its ongoing activities,” commission chair Lina Petronienė told reporters on Monday.

She said the commission reached that conclusion after checking the financial documents of political campaign participants.

Petronienė said reports about potentially non-transparent activities by commission members harm the institution. However, she could not say whether Matjošaitytė should have recused herself from issues related to Nemunas Dawn.

“All reports about members of the Central Electoral Commission, even when they concern actions they took before becoming commission members while working in other institutions and holding other positions, are certainly, in my view, a form of damage to our commission,” Petronienė said.

She added that integrity, transparency and equal treatment of all political campaign participants were particularly important because the commission prepares and organises elections.

Petronienė was responding to a report by the Delfi news portal that Matjošaitytė had advised Nemunas Dawn on membership fees and helped prepare the party’s response to the commission before returning to work there. According to the report, she did not declare this fact after becoming a commission member in May last year.

Matjošaitytė also declined to tell Delfi whether she had been paid for her work for the party. Nemunas Dawn deputy chair Robertas Puchovičius confirmed that he had communicated with her but said he could not remember whether she had provided services to the party or received payment.

Matjošaitytė chaired the Central Electoral Commission from 2017 to 2021 and returned as a member last May. Her candidacy, along with that of lawyer Maksimas Reznikovas, was submitted by then-Justice Minister Rimantas Mockus, who had been delegated by Nemunas Dawn. In a secret vote on the commission’s appointment, Matjošaitytė received the least support, with 88 members of parliament voting for her.