RIGA, June 11 (LETA) - Kristine Saulite, the Chair of the Central Election Commission (CVK), will resign from her position, she announced on Wednesday at a meeting of the Saeima's State Administration and Local Government Committee.

The Committee is evaluating these past municipal elections, which were marred by technical problems.

Saulite said that several new things had also been introduced in the electoral process, which have been positively assessed, such as mobile polling stations, and the fact that early voting in these elections took place over five days.

"The turnout in these elections was very high," Saulite said.

In her opinion, the CVK has done an excellent job overall.

"As we know, the second thing, which is also stipulated in the law, is that the State Digital Development Agency is responsible for the systems," said Saulite, saying that there have been a number of snags in the area of the State Digital Development Agency's responsibility.

Saulite also pointed out that it was very difficult to get information from the State Digital Development Agency on election night.

"I take responsibility for what is within my competences," Saulite said, saying that she was now "being piled on top" of others' failures.

She also said that she has "no political backing" and was therefore announcing her resignation.

Representatives of the CVK told the Committee that they cannot take responsibility for systems that are not their responsibility. The representatives of the CVK had done everything possible "to prevent an emergency situation".

As reported, 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.

President Edgars Rinkevics said earlier that the CVK and the State Digital Development Agency (VDAA) 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.

At the moment, an inter-institutional task force has not launched a probe into the problems with the vote counting, as it initially needs to gather all the necessary and available information on what happened, Raivis Kronbergs, director of the State Chancellery, told members of the press on Monday.

In the meantime, Smart Administration and Regional Development Minister Inga Berzina (New Unity) has suspended the State Digital Development Agency's Director Jorens Liopa from his job.

"It is not for me to judge the minister's actions," said Liopa later, answering a question whether he thought the minister had acted rashly.

He said that until last week there was "such confidence" that everything would work properly because there was no indication that anything could go wrong.

Meanwhile, 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.

Saulite said earlier that the CVK had done everything to ensure a successful election. She said that "if there had been the slightest indication that the systems were not ready, or that something might not work in some way, then those in charge would have been ready to take the decision to count the votes manually right away".

She also pointed out that there was no doubt about the veracity of the election results. "The truth is that the elections have taken place, the results have been compiled and they are correct," Saulite said.