— The Electoral Code provides that in a single-member constituency, votes are automatically recounted when the difference in votes among candidates is less than 50 votes. But if the difference is greater, then there is a reasonable basis for recounting the votes. Then the Central Electoral Commission decides by voting whether it is really justified. As far as the elections in the Vilnius region are concerned, the complaints were considered and the decision was made by voting not to count the votes. There were cases when the Central Electoral Commission made decisions and the votes were counted. I will not say now in which local governments it was, but there were such cases, says Indrė Ramanavičienė, spokesperson of the Central Election Commission, to “Kurier Wileński”.
Robert Duchniewicz, the newly elected mayor of the Vilnius region, said in an interview with “Kurier Wileński” that he is personally ready to work constructively with all groups that have representatives in the local government, including the Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania – Union of Christian Families.
“All these emotions need to die down. I think that time has come. In the near future, I will formally request the cooperation of selected members of the board. I know that EAPL-CFA appealed against the VRK’s decision in court. We legally understand how this will end. This is a typical action, because really, they have nothing to lose, and maybe they can gain something. This is all normal, the law allows it. I understand that it is not pleasant to lose in the local government, where for many years you were the only one at the helm of power. We all need to sit down at the table together and start to cooperate, because if there is no cooperation, only the inhabitants of the Vilnius region will suffer – assures Robert Duchniewicz.
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Read more: Robert Duchniewicz’s statement: “There will be no witch hunting”
| photo. Marian Paluszkiewicz
During the second round of elections, Robert Duchniewicz, a Pole from the Social Democratic Party, defeated Waldemar Urban from the EAPL-CFA with a margin of only 526 votes. In the second round of elections, 49.43 percent of voters voted for Waldemar Urban. voters, for Robert Duchniewicz – 50.57 percent.
On March 21, the representative of the Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania – Union of Christian Families, Danuta Winckiewicz, filed a motion with the Central Electoral Commission to invalidate and repeat the elections for the mayor of the Vilnius region. He justifies this decision by saying that “these elections were neither free nor democratic.”
“The complaint indicated violations during the elections in Rudomin. 100 votes for the EAPL-CFA candidate Waldemar Urban were among the votes supporting the social democrat Robert Duchniewicz. Violations were also indicated in Kiwiszki, where 13 bulletins were not sealed due to the action of a member of the commission from Laisvės party. The complaint says that there were too few seats for premature voting, that there were no policemen, that they were military, in Riflemen’s Union uniforms. It was pointed out that older people were supposedly afraid and did not vote at all,” commented Ilona Bondzinskaitė, the committee’s lawyer, during the VRK meeting.
“We would like to emphasize that the Central Election Commission did not ask the Union of Riflemen of Lithuania during these elections for help in maintaining order in the vicinity of the polling stations. We do not know whose decision it was,” wrote the VRK communiqué sent to “Kurier Wileński”.
However, after assessing the circumstances of the situation by VRK’s lawyers, it was found that in the constituency of Rudomin, in accordance with the law, the votes had been counted three times. 100 votes were allocated in favor of Urban’s candidate. This and other violations identified by EAPL-CFA were assessed as human error on the part of the committee.
Considering these circumstances, the ranks of VRK members proposed to satisfy the complaint of the EAPL-CFA and to recount the votes of voters of the Vilnius region, but the commission decided otherwise in the vote. “In my opinion, there are no legal grounds to count the votes of the voters of the Vilnius district self-government. I see such complaints as a search for lost votes, an inability to accept defeat,” said Jolita Baušytė, a member of VRK.
Meanwhile, the electoral staff of the EAPL-CFA announced that it would appeal in court against the decision of the district commission and the VRK not to count the votes and expressed the hope that the bags with the bulletins would not be deceitfully opened in the VRK premises, as it used to be.
– There is a great fear of counting votes. Among the social democrats and their coalition partners of the “Freedom Party”, liberals, conservatives. In the district commission on Wednesday, the votes had to be counted. First, it was decided that the complaint should be accepted for consideration, 7 votes “for” – 6 “against”. Then there was sabotage. A representative of VRK came to the district government and assured that the votes would be counted, but unfortunately during the voting it was decided otherwise. Some members of the committee wanted to recalculate, and this indicates that the reasons were there. So the (rhetorical) question arises, why are they afraid of recalculation? There were many attempts to falsify the results in the elections. This year, the grand coalition approached the elections very unfairly, said Waldemar Tomaszewski.
After the electoral commission of the Vilnius district refused to recount the votes, on Thursday, on the order of the mayor of the region, Maria Rekść, the ballots were not allowed to be taken away. The police went to the place, the officers escorted the transport with the cards to the storage place. The police later said that after assessing the actions of those responsible for the incident, a decision would be taken on whether to apply criminal charges.
During the second round of elections for mayors of local governments, the course of elections in the Vilnius region was watched by international observers from Poland: Member of the European Parliament Patryk Jaki and Member of the Polish Parliament Mieczysław Baszko. International observers found a number of irregularities in the electoral process which, in their opinion, bear the hallmarks of discrimination against the Polish national minority. In addition, they pointed out that the candidate of the Polish minority party EAPL-CFA, Waldemar Urban, was treated in a biased manner, which had a negative impact on the electoral process and the election result.
Read more: The new mayor of the Vilnius region: Robert Duchniewicz. The second round of local government elections has ended
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