Digital Development Agency's Director Liopa to be suspended for problems with vote counting after local elections

RIGA - Smart Administration and Regional Development Minister Inga Berzina (New Unity) will suspend the State Digital Development Agency's Director Jorens Liopa from his job.

In an interview with TV3 Monday morning, Berzina stressed that the way the vote counting was organized in the last local elections was unacceptable. The Digital Development Agency is responsible to the Smart Administration and Regional Development Ministry, and Berzina has decided to suspend the agency's head, Liopa.

The Smart Administration and Regional Development Ministry's State Secretary Edvins Balsevics will be appointed the agency's acting head.

Such positions that carry a lot of responsibility must be held by trustworthy people, given that the next Saeima elections will take place already in 2026, said Berzina.

In an interview with Latvian Radio, Berzina added that the Central Election Commission should also be held responsible for the flawed vote counting process, as it was in charge of the whole process of organizing the elections. She repeatedly stressed that the way the vote counting was carried out was unacceptable and such incidents should never occur again.

However, Berzina herself does not intend to take political responsibility as a minister. In the radio interview, she said that taking any political responsibility for the elections would be a step toward politicization of the elections. She also said that, in general, Latvia was a very digitally advanced country, which was something to be proud of.

An inter-institutional task force will meet later today to assess problems with vote counting after the local elections, the State Chancellery's Director Raivis Kronbergs told LETA.

In the meantime, the Digital Development Agency has launched an in-depth probe into the reasons for the slow scanning of ballots, which will look into the agency's employees directly responsible for the election system to the developers and auditors, the agency's senior official Agnese Tkacenko told LETA.

According to Tkacenko, if the reasons for the slow scanning of ballots were easily identifiable during the election night, the Digital Development Agency would have done everything in its power to eliminate the problem.

In total, vote counting was done electronically at more than 600 polling stations, which means that ballots were scanned at two thirds of the polling stations, said Tkacenkko.

According to the Digital Development Agency's data, 284,381 or 41 percent of ballot papers were scanned and the data were processed electronically, but these figures will also be double checked, said Tkacenko.

As reported, President Edgars Rinkevics said earlier that the Central Election Commission and the Digital Development Agency had failed in organizing local elections. In his opinion, the Saeima and the government should evaluate the work of these institutions and the responsibility of their officials.

The politician believes that there must be concrete solutions to ensure that next year's parliamentary elections run smoothly and without incidents.

LETA also reported that the counting of votes in the 2025 municipal elections faced technical problems on Saturday and overnight on Sunday. Polling stations also faced technical problems during the week of advance voting.