“Just shut your mouth! You will answer for everything!” 0 8

Today, the parliament unanimously and urgently adopted an amendment in its final reading, which requires the manual counting of votes in the Saeima elections on October 3 of this year. This urgent change was a reaction to a recent high-profile scandal involving searches, detentions, and arrests of officials and entrepreneurs suspected of corruption in the procurement of information systems services for organizing the election process.

During the debates on the amendment, MP Linda Liepiņa (“Latvia First”) was very disturbed by the noise in the hall during her speech. She reacted to the loud talking from MP Jānis Patmalnieks (“New Unity”) by addressing him from the podium: “Jānis Patmalnieks! Just shut up! You will answer for everything!”

The Speaker of the Saeima, Daiga Mieriņa, responded to this remark: “I am giving you a warning, Ms. Liepiņa, for disrespect towards a colleague.”