According to the Commission’s calculation, convicted persons make up about 3.5 percent. from the total number of candidates for the Seimas.
The list of the Lithuanian People’s Party stands out
Aurimas Drižius, who is running for the Seimas on the list of the Lithuanian People’s Party as number four, has the most convictions. He was convicted of defamation, insult, non-execution of a court decision, non-execution, extortion, contempt of court and contempt of the memory of the deceased. According to the data provided in the politician’s questionnaire, this person has been convicted 11 times.
Raimundas Purvinskas, who was convicted of fraud and embezzlement, is included in the top ten list of the Lithuanian People’s Party, ranked number five. Also eighth on the list is Žilvins Razmin, twice convicted of incitement against any nation, race, ethnic, religious or other group of people.
Famous politicians are also among the convicted persons
At that time, there were two convicted persons in the top ten of the electoral list of the “Peace Coalition”. This is Viktoras Uspaskichas, the leader of the list convicted of fraud and fraudulent accounting, and Valdas Tutkus, the former commander of the Lithuanian army, who was convicted of violating road traffic safety or vehicle operation rules. It is true that the convictions of both politicians have already disappeared.
The Party of Regions of Lithuania and the Green Party of Lithuania each have 7 convicted candidates for the Seimas, while the electoral list of the Freedom Party has 4 convicted politicians. On the other hand, the Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats, the Lithuanian Peasants and Greens Union, the Democratic Union “For Lithuania”, the “Freedom and Justice” party, the Liberal Movement and the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party (LSDP) each nominate 2 convicted politicians to the Seimas, while “National Unification 1 convicted person in the list.
Among these convicted persons is Artūras Zuokas, the leader of the “Freedom and Justice” party, and Gintautas Paluckas, number two on the LSDP list, who was convicted of abuse. For both of these politicians, the criminal record has already disappeared.
On the other hand, there are no convicted persons in the election list of the Lithuanian Polish Election Action – Union of Christian Families (LLRA-KŠS).
Persons who have served a court sentence can apply
In order for a person to be able to run for office, it is important that the sentence imposed by the court or the measure of criminal sanctions has been fulfilled, the CEC informs. In the general statistics, the fact of the disappearance of the criminal record itself is not evaluated.
According to the legal regulations that were in force during the organization of the 2020 During the Seimas elections, the candidates had to indicate the number of convictions they had, and after clarifying the cases of concealment, they were removed from the elections. in 2020 2 percent of candidates provided information about their criminal record. After the inspection, it became clear that 12 candidates hid this information and their registration was canceled by the decision of the CEC, the commission explained.
in 2022 after the Electoral Code comes into force, the duty to check whether the candidate has an unfinished sentence imposed by the court is carried out by the CEC and it does so until the day of the election.
The CEC receives data on court judgments related to candidates from the Register of Suspects, Accused and Convicted, which is administered by the Department of Informatics and Communications under the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania.
Seimas elections will be held on October 13.
2024-09-11 21:45:32