Nationalists dropped from ruling coalition

Oct 25, 2010
TBT Staff

The nationalist "All for Latvia" party was dropped from coalition talks over disagreements within the ruling "unity" block.

RIGA - Latvian Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis has announced that the nationalist alliance "Visu Latvijai/TB-LNNK" will not take part in the next ruling coalition.

The announcement came just days after the prime minister, who was re-elected earlier this month, said the party would be a member of the new ruling coalition.

The next government will now be made up of just two parties - "Unity", which took 33 seats, and "The Greens and Farmers Union", which earned 22 seats. This will give the new governmetn a slim majority of 55 out of 100 seats in parliament. Had they included the nationalist party they would have had 63 seats.

The reversal reportedly came about because of divisions within the "Unity" voting block.

The first important task for the new government will be drawing up a 2011 budget with a reduced deficit. Members of the Unity block were quoted as saying that they needed to focus on economic issues rather than nationalist ones.

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