This week, as is known, the scandal of the year occurred — law enforcement agencies, at the initiative of the European Prosecutor's Office, conducted searches, detentions, and arrests — several officials and entrepreneurs are suspected of corruption in organizing procurement for information system services for elections.
We will count manually!
The situation is apparently so dramatic that the president of the country has gotten involved, even inviting the European prosecutor from Latvia to clarify the details. After hearing the information, Rinkēvičs stated that the criminal proceedings were initiated completely justified and immediately called for, to avoid any violations and speculations, the counting of votes in the upcoming elections to the Saeima — on October 3 of this year — to be conducted MANUALLY. Especially remembering what happened a year ago during the municipal elections, when the computer systems "froze" and the counting of voting results was halted for several hours, which again led to rumors and conjectures, with some parties doubting the legitimacy of the election results.
And now, responding to the president's call, the Saeima's commission on public administration and local government urgently prepared an amendment for manual vote counting, which was unanimously adopted yesterday in an expedited manner and came into effect! However, the debates preceding the vote took place in heightened tones. Deputy Linda Liepiņa (“Latvia First”) lamented from the Saeima podium about the ruling coalition's unwillingness to take responsibility for the failure of the election organization system. At one point during Liepiņa's speech, noise erupted in the hall, with Deputy Jānis Patmalnieks (“New Unity”) speaking particularly loudly, which provoked a sharp reaction from Liepiņa: “Jānis Patmalnieks! Just shut up! You will answer for everything!”
To this remark, the Speaker of the Saeima, Daiga Mieriņa, reacted: “I am giving you, Ms. Liepiņa, a warning for disrespect towards a colleague.”
Deputy Māris Kučinskis (United List) pointed out that manual vote counting does not guarantee that everything will go smoothly on election night, as all data from the protocols will still need to be transferred to the computer system... Where is the guarantee that everything will proceed clearly? Especially considering the current corruption scandal!
People simply won’t come to vote
In turn, Deputy Edmunds Zivtiņš (“Latvia First”) warned: all these scandals only discourage citizens of the Republic of Latvia from participating in the elections: “You know what is most important in all this — that in such cases happening in our country, 21 people have been detained... searches, seizures, arrests. This greatly affects people's faith in the state, it greatly affects faith in the electoral system, and it greatly affects how many people will vote at all. People will say they won’t go because there is no point — you can’t trust the system and they will count as they want..."
One way or another, the vote counting will be conducted manually in these elections. We will see what happens...
Useless solution?
Yesterday, the Saeima also adopted a special law “On Limiting the Rise in Diesel Fuel Prices” in just one day. The law provides for: first - a reduction of 15.2% in the currently applied excise tax rate on diesel fuel from 467 EUR to 396 EUR per 1000 liters. Second - it is also proposed to set the excise tax rate for marked diesel fuel used in agriculture at 21 EUR per 1000 liters, namely - 15% of the standard rate during this period.
The reduction in excise rates is a limited measure: from April 1, 2026, to June 30, 2026.
However, even before the law was adopted, it was clear to everyone that... “not worth it,” meaning the effectiveness of this step would be extremely low if the situation in the Persian Gulf does not normalize by April 1 and global oil prices do not decrease. Judge for yourself. According to the Ministry of Finance's calculations, this reduction in excise will lead to a decrease in the cost of diesel fuel at gas stations by 8.5 cents per liter. This means that if fuel currently costs, for example, 2.2 euros per liter, then after the law comes into effect, a liter of fuel will still cost around 2 euros per liter. And the Minister of Economics, Viktors Valainis, assured that to prevent a wave of inflation, it is necessary to “keep” the price of diesel fuel around 1.8-1.9 euros.
To be fair, it should be noted that the ministry led by Valainis proposed three options for reducing the excise — by 15%, by 20%, and by 35% — depending on the current price of diesel at gas stations. However, the Ministry of Finance insisted on a “fiscally neutral” solution, meaning that the reduction in excise should not lead to a decrease in budget revenues. At the same time, the Minister of Economics did not rule out that if fuel prices continue to rise, the government would return to the issue of further reducing the excise. However, this would mean restarting the legislative process anew.
It should be noted that representatives of the freight transport industry and taxi drivers also stated the uselessness of the law adopted yesterday. They even threatened to strike. It is evident that if the authorities really want to avoid a surge in inflation, they should consider subsidies for fuel specifically for freight carriers, especially those delivering food products.
Thus, yesterday's decision is unlikely to curb inflation, and the Minister of Economics did not rule out that food prices could rise by 3-5%.
Tax initiative to be considered
The proximity of the elections also forces the ruling politicians to be more “lenient” towards various initiatives from the opposition. And so yesterday, unexpectedly, the majority of deputies agreed to support in the zero reading, that is, to pass to the Saeima commission the initiative of the opposition faction “Latvia First” to abolish the property tax on the only residence. This is certainly not a guarantee of adoption, but nonetheless, the right-wing parties are not ready to simply dismiss important initiatives for voters in silence.
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