How democratic are political parties of Latvia – procedure and criteria of nomination of election candidates in the municipal elections of 2009 in Riga and Jurmala

The project addressed the selection of candidates on party lists for the 2009 municipal elections in the 2 largest cities of Latvia. Interviews with 30 party members of different statuses were conducted on the practices of candidates’ selection and the statutes and bylaws of parties were analyzed. A public data base was compiled with information on the candidates proposed by major political parties by using public available information (media, news agencies). The data base was intended to draw public attention to cases where the lists included candidates with mixed reputation. The candidates were evaluated based on 6 criteria: charges of corruption, conflicts of interest, large tax debts to the state, repeated changes of political party, cash reserves of over 10 000 LVL or seemingly confusing financial transactions.