Plea for Rinkēvičs not to sign Latvia's exit from Istanbul Convention most popular initiative of its kind

This number was collected in four days, and it continues to grow.

Imants Breidaks, the head of the platform, said in an interview on Latvian Radio's "Pusdiena" programme that the largest number of signatures collected by "ManaBalss.lv" so far has been for the initiative "On abolishing the real estate tax for a single property", which was signed by a total of 64,740 people over a period of about 3 years.

However, the submission of the initiative to the Saeima did not change the decision on this issue.

The initiative published on Friday, asking the President not to sign the law on withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention, has gathered signatures the fastest in the history of "ManaBalss.lv", said the head of the platform.

Some people on social media are wondering whether one person can sign an initiative more than once, using different online banking access and e-signatures. Breidaks explained to LSM.lv that this is not possible, as the process involves the signatory's personal code.

"Over 15 years, we have submitted hundreds of signature files to public authorities, especially to the Parliament, and all personal codes have been verified by the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs (PMLP) in order to cross out, for example, signatures of non-citizens and foreigners. The Parliament is interested in the number of unique personal codes from citizens over 16 years of age. So we cannot keep the same personal code several times on initiatives because the PMLP removes duplicate signatures," he said.

"What is true: if you choose to donate at the time of voting, it will take time for us to receive your personal code from the bank. And in that time it may feel like you can 'appear' to vote 'again'. It still does not change the fact that you have to wait for the data to load from the bank and each personal code is counted once," Breidaks continued.

On Monday evening, when some 61,000 people had signed the call not to withdraw from the Convention, President Edgars Rinkēvičs announced that he would exercise his right to request a second reading of the law denouncing the Istanbul Convention.

This decision should be reconsidered by the next parliamentary term, according to the country's top official.

Given that this Saeima has both ratified and denounced the Convention and that this is a hot issue, the most sensible way forward would be for the parties to get a new mandate in the Saeima and then return to the subject, the President commented.