Home » News » Justice: Piller vs Migros: November vote has been falsified – Switzerland

Justice: Piller vs Migros: November vote has been falsified – Switzerland

Some 28,000 ballots favorable to the administration of Migros Neuchâtel-Friborg (MNF) have been falsified, announces the Neuchâtel Public Prosecutor’s Office. They helped to defeat the proposal to dismiss the administration, chaired by Damien Piller.

According to a new account, relating to some 50,000 ballots received last November, the result would have been reversed if we had only taken into account valid ballots, said Wednesday evening the Prosecutor’s office of the canton of Neuchâtel.

About 17,600 ballots would have supported the revocation of mandates and 4,600 would have opposed it. According to official results, the revocation was ultimately rejected by 64.53% of the vote.

Seizures and hearings

The 50,000 ballot papers were seized and analyzed, first by the Neuchâtel police, then by the Lausanne School of Criminal Sciences. “The concordant conclusions of the experts confirm the suspicions, in the sense that there are indeed two categories of ballot papers, one coming from the printing press officially mandated by the election organizers, and the other from an unknown source”, writes the Public minister.

With the support of the Friborg and Vaud authorities, the Neuchâtel cantonal police intervened on Wednesday at the homes of people who could be linked to this offense. Seizures have been ordered and hearings have taken place, on which the Public Prosecutor does not wish to comment at this stage of the proceedings. The investigation continues.

Criminal information

The vote, organized by correspondence, was completed last November. Each cooperator had to decide whether or not to revoke the administration’s mandates. Out of 120,000 ballots issued, the counting office received around 50,000, a rate of 41.72%.

After learning the result of the extraordinary vote, the cooperative committee of MNF had introduced a criminal denunciation for forgery in the titles and attempted swindle with the Public Ministry of the canton of Neuchâtel.

This approach followed the revelations of the RTS television news on the discovery of 400 ballots, all in favor of Damien Piller, in mailboxes located outside the cantons of Neuchâtel and Friborg. According to the cooperative committee, “there was a strong suspicion of electoral manipulation and that is why the result of this ballot (had to) be examined”.

Two disputed invoices

As a reminder, the Federation of Migros Cooperatives (FCM) and the bodies of MNF, except the administration which stands behind its president, accuse Damien Piller, lawyer active in real estate and the media, of having invoiced Migros near 1.7 million francs via two of its companies, “without receiving equivalent consideration in exchange”.

According to Migros, Damien Piller embezzled funds in the context of new stores built in 2013 and 2014 in Belfaux and La Roche (FR). Different reports come to this conclusion, depending on the regional cooperative.

In response, the Fribourgeois opened the accounts of the two companies in question to a chartered accountant and an architect. The results of these audits indicated that the two amounts of 864,000 francs, all taxes included, correspond to services provided, according to the businessman.

The cooperative committee, the management and the personnel commission of MNF demanded the dismissal of the entire administration of the cooperative.

Director suspended

Following the vote, the administration decided to suspend Jean-Marc Bovay from his post as director of the MNF cooperative, citing “a simple measure taken to return to the discussion”. The suspension had been deemed “illegitimate” by FCM.

At the beginning of December, we finally learned that dialogue had resumed between the administration and the management of the Migros Neuchâtel-Friborg cooperative and that “the settlement of existing disputes is left to the competence of the authorities seized”. Jean-Marc Bovay was able to continue his duties as director of the cooperative. (ats / nxp)

Created: 10.06.2020, 20h43

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