More The law was amended to ensure the sustainable development of the territory of Varakļāni municipality as until now the municipality did not meet the objective of the administrative-territorial reform and the criteria for the establishment of municipalities The municipality did not have a development center and was the smallest municipality in terms of population - according to the Register of Natural Persons the municipality had 3,138 inhabitants.  The amendments establish the procedure for holding the next local elections in the merged Madona municipality Until the first session of the new municipal council elected in next year's municipal elections the municipalities of Varakļāni and Madona will continue to perform their functions in the administrative territories they had Select text and press Ctrl+Enter to send a suggested correction to the editor Select text and press Report a mistake to send a suggested correction to the editor Amendments have yet to be adopted by the Saeima in order to consolidate the municipalities Following the Law on Administrative Territories and Settlements the municipality of Varakļāni was to organize a public consultation on the merger of the Varakļāni municipality with the surrounding ones for administrative-territorial reform The results of the organized survey showed that in the event of an administrative decision to merge the district of Varakļāni during the territorial reform the absolute majority of the population would like it to be Madona municipality – 858 votes (95.3%) 35 votes (3.9%) were for Rēzekne municipality The municipality of Varakļāni is the only municipality whose merger with one of the neighboring municipalities remained an unresolved issue after administrative territorial reform Amendments submitted by the government to the Saeima contain only one proposal in the Law on Administrative Territories and Settlements – the addition of Varakļāni municipality to Madona municipality This task to the Saeima resulted from the decision of the Constitutional Court that the addition of Varakļāni to the Rēzekne municipality instead did not conform to the Constitution The municipality of Varakļāni is the only municipality whose merger with one of the neighboring municipalities remained an unresolved issue after administrative-territorial reform In polls conducted in the municipality of Varakļāni a significant majority of the population supported mergers with the municipality of Madona which was also based on earlier cooperation well before the administrative-territorial reform Most Saeima State Administration and Local Government Committee deputies supported this vision and emphasized that all counties have to have clarity about the boundaries of counties and common commitments a year before local government elections The issue will be seen by the Saeima next Thursday Take note – story published 3 years and 10 months ago The reform provides that the previous 119 municipalities are now reduced to 43 larger municipalities The new municipalities have been formed by merging several former municipalities with each new entity now having its own main regional city Representatives of several municipalities were not satisfied with the reform and filed complaints with the Constitutional court except for the decision on the merger of Varaklani region with Rezekne region Ilukste region with Augsdaugava region and Ozolnieki region with Jelgava region Local elections across most of the country in June will decide the shape of the new councils but elections will still be held in Varaklani region and Rezekne region. Until then temporary administrations have been appointed in both municipalities