All About Latvia

RIGA – Three is the magic number for Latvia’s outgoing Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis. His government, thirteenth in Latvia’s 79-year-old history, latched on to power for three years and three days, an amazing record for parliamentary democracy.

And today, we bid farewell to the 41-year-old father of three, the guarantor of stability, and the all-round nice guy.

Usually confident and self-assured to the point of arrogance, Kalvitis spent less than five minutes with the press this afternoon after he submitted a letter to President Dr. Valdis Zatlers announcing his government’s resignation.

He looked rushed, somewhat disinterested, wanting to go away from the spotlight of cameras and flash of photographers. He thanked everyone, including the Academy, for a job well-done in two languages – and disappeared.

And really, what else could he have said?

Although the four-party coalition maintains a majority in
parliament, the centre-right government has been under mounting pressure to step down since the October revolution and Subdued revolution.

This is the end of the Kalvitis years filled with zoo-elected presidents, guarantors of stability, double-digit inflation, and smoking strong pipe of peace with Russia.

On November 8, Kalvitis announced his government would step down today, giving the government time to “complete unfinished tasks.”

A week later, the English-language newspaper The Baltic Times compared his decision to “a draft of fresh air through a crack in an outhouse.”

“This has been the single worst government in Latvian history, and we can only wish it good riddance. That‘s the good news,” the newspaper declared.

“The bad news is that it would appear the same batch of compromised misfits will lead the next government - same incompetence, different faces - suggesting that the mismanagement of the imperiled Latvian state could be prolonged indefinitely.”

The public discontent that toppled the strong confident government had been mounting since February, when it pushed through the parliament controversial amendments to the security laws.

Then, there was Zatlers’ election, er, sorry, appointment, at the Riga Zoo, leaving public and Zatlers himself outside the gate.

Most recently, Latvia managed not only to negotiate the border treaty with Russia, but also to adhere to the Russian laws about political advertising one day before the Russian parliamentary elections.

So far, so good.

All the while, it was amazing to see the government lose the trust of the people in just one year since being re-elected.

Zatlers is preparing for talks on the new prime minister. So far three people are known to be interested - a number cruncher, and MEP, Valdis Dombrovskis from the New Era party, a former prime minister, a man of many words and wonderfully grey beard, Ivars Godmanis and a former mayor of the town of Kuldiga (from People’s Party) Edgars Zalans, who only recently has been appointed as a minister of regional development.

But regardless who will come in his place, the next prime minister will still have to deal with overheating economy, dancing the fine line between the moon and New York City, and earn back the public trust.

And there, numerology won’t help.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 5th, 2007 at 11.09 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.