The EBU Investigation into alleged Vote Buying. Photograph courtesy of graduateinstitute.ch

The EBU are set to drop their investigation into vote-buying allegations at Eurovision 2013, according to Swedish Media outlet Aftonbladet. Lithuanian media 15.min had posted an alleged video showing an attempt to purchase tele votes for Azerbaijan at this year’s Eurovision. Just a few weeks ago Eurovision Supervisor Jon Ola Sand, had said that these matters were being investigated rigorously.

Aftonbladet claim that Eurovision Event Organiser Sietse Bakker has said “There are no indications that any of our members initiated such activities”. This comes after the Eurovision Reference Committee met yesterday for the first time following this year’s Eurovision Song Contest.

Jon Ola Sand – EBU. Photograph courtesy of Wikimedia

However Jon Ola Sand had claimed that the issue was being investigated by the Reference Committee – but that was several weeks ago yet their first meeting was yesterday according to Aftonbladet. The EBU had to investigate whether Azerbaijan bought phone votes in up to 15 countries.

“15.min reporter Liepa Želnien says she gave EBU contact information for the company that rented a car to the men in the video. I asked the rental company to provide all the information they had to the EBU. He said he would tell everything including the names of these guys”  she says according to Aftonbladet.

The car rental company is claiming that the EBU investigators – co-ordinated by Sietse Bakker, have not been in contact with them, according to Aftonbladet.

Aftonbladet claim to have directly asked Sietse Bakker “How persistent have you been in your attempts to reach the rental company in Lithuania?” to which they have claimed that his email response was “While we are investigating this, I can not comment on that.”

Have the police been called in to review these allegations of Fraudulent vote-buying – it seems as the answer to this is no.

The outcome from the investigation will probably be in the form of future vote security.

We need to stress that we are just commenting on the article by Aftonbladet. If what they are claiming is true, do you think that the EBU should be taking further action and what form should that be?

Author/Website co-founder and Editor in Chief Garrett Mulhall

Source – Aftonbladet.se