Mass exodus of Latvian politicians promises shake-up in system

  • 2008-02-06
  • By Talis Saule Archdeacon

TOGETHER AGAIN: Kristovskis (left) and Kalniete stood together in the anti-government protests last fall and will now join efforts to form a new party.

RIGA - Several leading politicians have abandoned their parties in order to form a new political force that could, on a wave of electoral dissatisfaction with the current coalition, change the political map in Latvia.
The first exodus occurred in the center-right New Era, as several high profile members abruptly left the party in search of brighter political prospects elsewhere.
Then, on Feb. 4, Girts Valdis Kristovskis, a reputable member of the nationalist For Fatherland and Freedom party, announced that he would leave the party, a junior coalition partner, since he felt that the party had lost direction.

Speaking to local media, Kristovskis suggested that other members of the right-wing party might follow suit.
A member of the European Parliament, Kristovskis has had increasingly tense relations with party leader Roberts Zile, also an MEP.
Last year Kristovskis narrowly lost a bid for party leadership to Zile, and the two have clashed over party policies, including on the party's role in the ruling coalition and whether to privatize Lattelecom.
The split in the two strong, nationalist parties sets the stage for the formation of a new, right-wing party that would aim to capitalize on the massive discontent among Latvians that will inevitably spill over into the ballot boxes during next year's municipal elections.

The party, which would ostensibly be spearheaded by Kristovskis and New Era's Sandra Kalniete, a former foreign minister, would join another party project recently launched by former Regional Affairs Minister Aigars Stokenbergs in competing for this "discontent vote."
Stokenbergs, who left the previous government due to acute differences of opinion, confirmed that he and former Foreign Minister Artis Pabriks would form a party.
"We will form our party. We have people. and we know what we want to do. Most likely it will happen in May," Stokenbergs told The Baltic Times.
He said the new party would focus on social-friendly policies, primarily closing the income gap, and attempt to alter governance in Latvia, where center-right politics have dominated since independence in 1991.
"We are for a more leftist policy than [there has been] for the last 10 years, because the previous policy has strengthened the unequal distribution of wealth [in the country]. Almost all the wealth from our rapid GDP growth has gone to a few people," said Stokenbergs, who left the People's Party last year but remains a member of Parliament.

"We are for fairness in the taxation system, we are for crucial reforms in the education and health care sector, and we want to fight corruption," he said.
Kristovskis' party, meanwhile, will likely be more right-winged. According to what he and Kalniete have said in the media, the party will focus on regional cooperation and development, deliberately avoiding becoming overly embroiled in business interests surrounding the capital city. 
"All the largest parties at the moment are parties for Riga, big business or one-issue parties," Kalniete said in a Feb. 4 interview with the popular television news program "The 100th Article." She said the new party would be "democratic, patriotic and rooted in the regions."

The party, as yet unnamed, is expected to draw a significant amount of support from politicians who recently walked out of New Era. Moreover, it is rumored that a number of For Fatherland and Freedom members will follow Kristovskis' footsteps and join the new political movement.

Though the two new parties will fall on opposite ends of the political spectrum, they seem more likely to cooperate with each other than with the ruling coalition. While publicly throwing her full support behind Kristovskis' new party, Kalniete said in a TV interview on Feb. 1 she was prepared to work closely with Stokenbergs on a number of "essential" issues.
Stokenbergs, for his part, welcomed the move by Kristovskis to drop his party in favor of founding a new one.
"We are happy that the ruling coalition is losing its members. It shows that these are good times, that people are willing to change the political system," he said.
"We haven't heard yet from those people who left New Era, and those people who will most likely leave the other parties 's and we don't yet know what their ideas are 's but we are committed to work together with everybody," he said.

Importantly, Latvia's number one political heavyweight, former President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, said she would stay on the sidelines during this major realignment of forces.
"I don't want my name to be involved in political scheming," she was quoted as saying. She said she feared squandering the political capital she had accrued over the years by jumping into the fray. 
The formation of two new parties is bound to bring in some fresh ideas, but some observers feel that further division is a step backwards for national politics.
In a Feb. 1 interview with the Baltic News Service, Latvia's First/Latvia's Way faction head Andris Berzins said Latvia should be consolidating its political parties rather than splintering them.
"It will not benefit Latvia's political environment. Strength is not in those who split up but in those who unite their forces," Berzins, a former prime minister, said.

"Latvia should be moving towards the model of old democracies where there are three, four or five strong parties. I think it's time to leave parties dominated by particular people and to join parties that carry concrete ideologies," he said.
Berzins said the exodus of New Era party members happened under false pretenses, and that the reasons the former opposition party members publicly gave for leaving are "not even a fraction" of their true motives.
"They obviously hope for an open space for a new political party and try to monopolize this space in order to attempt to consolidate New Era and turn it into a strong party," he said, indicating that any new party they form would be very similar to New Era.
Krisjanis Karins, New Era's chairman, also thought the members have an ulterior motive.
"They had control of the board [in the party] and could have made any changes they wanted, so clearly there is something else happening," Karins told The Baltic Times.

He went on to say that he has heard the former party members wanted to garner more media attention by leaving and starting something completely new.
Though municipal elections are not due for another year-and-a-half 's scheduled to coincide with European Parliament elections in June 2009 's the current shifting of allegiances is sure to have some kind of an impact on those results.