It's great that you have decided to submit an initiative! This description will help you better understand the procedure for submitting, publishing and collecting signatures of the initiative, as well as help you create the initiative in order to collect 10,000 signatures very quickly! If you have any other questions, feel free to write to svei@manabalss.lv !
Since 2011, the ManaBalss platform has been providing a free service to Latvian citizens - signatories and submitters of initiatives that are not related to political or commercial interests.
Politically neutral societies, foundations and associations working for the public can also submit initiatives on the platform free of charge.
For political parties, companies and business lobbies, publishing an initiative is a paid service that is billed. The new price policy of the ManaBalss platform is valid from February 1, 2020.
Fee for publishing the initiative for companies * (EUR):
For small companies (up to
10 employees, turnover/balance sheet up to 2 million euros): 1000.
For small and
medium-sized companies: 2000
For large companies: 4900
Fee for publishing an initiative for political parties **:
| Low/medium party donations*** | High Party Donations*** | |
|---|---|---|
| Small/medium
membership (<1,000 members) |
2000 EUR | 4900 EUR |
| Large number of
members (≥1,000 members) |
4900 EUR | 4900 EUR |
*The merchant's compliance with the status can be found
at: http://www.liaa.gov.lv
**Before issuing an
invoice, the party representative must present an official document on the current number of
party members.
***Parties that have received ≥100,000 EUR in donations
in the last 12 months are included in the section "High donations to the
party". Parties that have received <100,000
EUR in donations are included in the section "Low/medium donations to the
party".
The restriction is in place so that donors who maintain our portal do not have to sponsor party activities on the platform. It also helps to balance the involvement of political parties, their members and the wider society in proposing initiatives.
Initiating an initiative is free for individuals .
The idea can be implemented by a state or local government institution by changing regulatory acts or by changing its actual behavior. When submitting an initiative, it is valuable to find out which laws regulate this area - it depends on who the initiative should best be addressed to, as well as whether and what changes are possible. For example, a number of things cannot be changed so easily, because they are defined either in EU-level legal acts, or refer to an area that is not regulated by the state or municipality at all. If specific facts are mentioned in the initiative, they must be true and provable (for example, the argument that something happened "on the basis of suspicion" and therefore requires change - we cannot verify suspicions) will not work.
The initiative does not contradict the foundations of the Latvian state - it means Latvia as an independent state, the purpose of which is to ensure the existence of the Latvian nation and the well-being of all Latvian residents, whose territory consists of the historical Latvian lands of Vidzeme, Latgale, Kurzeme and Zemgale, whose state system is based on the principles of democracy established in the Constitution , the overarching principles of a legal state, a socially responsible state and a nation state, and which respects the fundamental rights and fundamental values of people defined in the Constitution. Therefore, initiatives can also be submitted for amendments to the Constitution (including far-reaching amendments), as long as it does not change the essence of the Latvian state, which is based on the mentioned principles and which is protected by the immutable core of the Constitution.
The initiative does not contain general phrases (for example, "reduce taxes", "take measures to promote welfare", "punish the guilty"), but describes specific recommendations for the implementation of the proposed changes. Important - initiatives on tax issues, as well as issues that have a significant impact on the state or local government budget, should also briefly describe this impact and from which funds the reduction in the budget could be covered!
The initiative must answer the question "What do we want?", offering a constructive solution aimed at inclusive, sustainable change. We will not be able to publish initiatives that demand a specific person's recall, resignation, resignation, criminal prosecution, etc. actions directed against the specific person. We will not publish initiatives that demand something to be banned, punished, stopped, refused, etc. Every initiative can be formulated and transformed into a PAR initiative - we will consider each specific case separately, offering recommendations on how to do it! Regarding this and the other criteria, we will evaluate both the text of the initiative - the specific wording, and the "spirit" of the initiative - the idea behind this text.
The expressed arguments that support the idea of the initiative must have a clear source of their origin, such as data, theses and conclusions of state institutions, accredited educational institutions, research centers, published academic and research works. Information cannot be republished from unreliable sources. Non-independent media outlets that spread fake news or misleading information are considered unreliable sources.
When creating an initiative, it is recommended to write down the source from which the information was taken for the facts and statements. If it is not specified, the platform administrators have the right to request this information from the authors of the initiative. The authors of the initiative have the right not to indicate a reference to the content of the text, if it is clearly formulated as the personal opinion of the author (using the words "in my opinion", "in my opinion", etc.).
For an initiative to be published, it must meet the quality criteria. If it also meets all the additional criteria, then we will highlight it in different ways so that it is better and more often visible to the visitors of the portal!
All published initiatives will be available with a link, and can also be found in the "newest initiatives" section or by typing the key words of the initiative in the search engine.
Definitely! During the existence of ManaBalss.lv for more than three years, 14 initiatives have collected more than 10,000 signatures - of which the Saeima has made a final decision on 8, while 4 are still in the process in the Saeima. Politicians and media see and take into account the ideas published on the portal!
Read more about the work done HERE .
The initiative can be created by pressing the button " Create a new initiative " and by authorizing on the portal with the access of your internet bank. Next, you must follow the instructions on the portal and enter information about your initiative in the appropriate sections. Pay attention to the set quality criteria for the compliance of the initiative! We also invite you to contact the portal before creating an initiative, so that we know that such an initiative is being planned and can help in its creation in a timely and efficient manner.
The initiative can be submitted by citizens of the Republic of Latvia who have reached the age of 16.
The representative of the initiative can be any citizen of the Republic of Latvia who has reached the age of 16, or a legal entity registered in Latvia. To change the representative of the initiative, please contact the portal - we will tell you what is needed so that we can change it!
You can sign up for the initiative by logging into the portal with your internet bank's access.
You can only sign with the internet bank to ensure the authenticity of the signatures and that the person signs once for each initiative. When signing up with the internet bank, a personal code is registered on the portal. Thus, the institutions to which the collected signatures are submitted can verify the authenticity of the personal data and signatures by comparing them with the information available in the Directorate of Citizenship and Migration Affairs. We cannot ensure the authenticity of signatures in any other way yet.
We have tried to include all the most frequently used Latvian internet banks. If your internet bank is not on our list, it means that either very few people use this bank or they don't use it at all, or the bank was unable or unwilling to cooperate with us.
Please contact your bank and ask them to contact us so that we can include this online bank in our list.
Creating initiatives and signing up on the portal is free.
When 10,000 signatures are collected, the initiative can be submitted to the Saeima for consideration. We invite the authors to contact the portal before submitting the initiative to the Saeima! We will help you prepare the application, we will explain how the collected signatures are handed over to the Saeima, and we will try to help you in your work with the Saeima.
No, there is no deadline for collecting signatures.
We accept the initiative only in Latvian, because only in Latvian will we be able to present the initiative to the Saeima, as stipulated by the laws of the Republic of Latvia. Together we will create the initial version of the text of the initiative in Latvian - after that we will provide an official translation for it! After publication, the initiative will be available in both Latvian and Russian languages.
Maintaining and developing the portal really requires a lot of time and resources, but we are very happy that we can make such a contribution to building a better Latvia! We have a lot of needs that we cannot always cover from project funding, so we will be very happy for every donation - they will help make the portal faster, better, more convenient and more efficient! Read about donation options HERE .
You can familiarize yourself with it in the privacy policy section
