The leaders of the For Stability! party’s candidate lists for Latvia’s 15th Saeima elections will be Svetlana Čulkova, Pāvels Kuzmins, Natālija Marčenko-Jodko, Ludmila Rjazanova, and Igors Orlovs, according to the LETA news agency.
Čulkova, who leads the dissolved For Stability! parliamentary group, will head the party’s list in the Riga constituency. Running second on the Riga list will be former Riga City Council member Aleksejs Rosļikovs, who has relocated to Belarus and has been declared wanted by Latvian authorities.
The party’s Vidzeme list will be headed by Kuzmins, an assistant to MP Čulkova, while Latgale will be led by MP Marčenko-Jodko. Also running in Latgale is former MP Viktors Pučka, who resigned his parliamentary seat last autumn after previously being ordered to undergo a Latvian language proficiency assessment.
The Kurzeme list will be led by Ludmila Rjazanova, a production planning specialist at Lauma Fabrics in Liepāja Special Economic Zone, while Igors Orlov, executive director of Airons, will head the Zemgale list.
The party submitted its candidate lists for the 15th Saeima elections to the Central Election Commission (CVK) on Monday.
Candidate lists may be submitted until 5 July, with the parliamentary election scheduled for early October.
Earlier this year, For Stability! lost several MPs—Dmitrijs Kovoļenko, Iļja Ivanovs, Igors Judins, and Amils Saļimovs—causing the party’s parliamentary faction to collapse after it fell below the required minimum of five MPs. Čulkova stated that the party would continue its work in parliament through four independent deputies.
It has also been reported that Riga City Council revoked Rosļikovs’ council mandate at the end of May after he failed to attend more than half of council meetings over a three-month period.
In addition, the Riga City Court in the Latgale District amended Rosļikovs’ pre-trial measure, ordering his detention after he had relocated to Belarus.
The request was submitted by prosecutor Kaspars Andruškins during a court hearing in the criminal case in which Rosļikovs is charged with inciting national hatred.
The court also ordered that the defendant be declared wanted and suspended the proceedings until he is located.
Rosļikovs confirmed that he is currently in Belarus, explaining that he did not return to Latvia for the court hearing because he feared for his life after receiving telephone threats from individuals who allegedly threatened to “cut off his head.”
According to Rosļikovs, the State Security Service (VDD) had offered him accommodation in a safe house for six months, but he declined because he did not want to wait until the threats were carried out.
Rosļikovs is charged with inciting national and ethnic hatred. He, however, maintains that the criminal case against him is politically motivated.
Read also: BNN IN FOCUS | Political analyst explains what Riga City Council’s falling approval ratings really mean