Election authority cans candidate over criminal record

The Central Election Commission (CVK) on Thursday decided to remove Riga City Council member Ēriks Stendzenieks from the list of candidates standing for the 15th Saeima elections for the "Latvia First" (LPV) party. Stendzenieks has a long association with LPV leader Ainārs Šlesers and was formerly well-known as an advertising executive. The CVK determined that Stendzenieks is subject to restrictions referred to in Article 5, Paragraph 3 of the Saeima Election Law which states "Persons are not to be included in the lists of candidates and are not eligible to be elected to the Saeima if they have been convicted of an intentionally committed criminal offence, except cases when persons have been rehabilitated or their conviction has been expunged or vacated." The nature of Stendzenieks' criminal offence was not specified. LPV party candidate list submitter Everita Zariņa and Stendzenieks himself were invited to present their arguments at a CVK meeting on July 23rd. According to the CVK, Stendzenieks agreed to his removal from the political party LPV's candidate list. So far, the CVK has also removed "Harmony" candidate Jurijs Jesipenko from its party list because it turned out he is not a Latvian citizen.