President urges referendum review

RIGA- Latvian President Valdis Zatlers submitted a legalinitiative to the parliament, calling them to urgently decide on constitutionalamendments, enabling citizens to dissolve the parliament.

The president, addressing the parliament at a special meeting,said that this is the right time for such a decision and the parliament has toprepare respective amendments.

"To solve the parliamentary and state crisis quicklyand successfully, the president and a certain number of citizens should beempowered to initiate dissolution of the parliament," said Zatlers.

He does not offer his variant of the bill, but asks theparliament legal committee to invite representatives of the constitutionalrights expert commission to work jointly on the amendments.

The president said that the result of the referendum heldon August 2 is worth an assessment. "A large part of the society hasclearly said -- it wants bigger control over the parliament's work. More than600,000 people want to be heard not just once in four years. They are activecitizens, ready to cooperate, who care for Latvia's fate, and I am proud thatwe have so many of these people," said Zatlers.

He said that the task of the parliament and the governmentis to promote civic activity, react on it and lawmakers have to listen topeople's opinion.

"It is the only way towards cooperation between thepower and the nation. Cooperation has always been more fruitful than conflict,as well as trust is more perspective than disbelief," said Zatlers.

"Even though the parliament reached a compromise,trilateral dialogue was launched only when the signature collecting campaignhad been already started, but confidence in the parliament and the governmentwas damaged. Assessing last year's events, it is clear why the number of peopleparticipating in a referendum has risen two times. Even though the necessarynumber of votes was not gathered on Saturday, the results of the referendumcarry a very significant message," said the president.

He said that 40 percent of eligible voters voiced supportto the constitutional amendments, and it is not possible to ignore the wish ofsuch a large part of the society, but at the same time he underscored that itis important to ensure that dissolution of the parliament "does not becomea daily weapon to achieve politically selfish goals".

According to preliminary results of the August 2referendum, 629,064 Latvian citizens participated in a vote on theconstitutional amendments, allowing people to initiate dissolution of theparliament, and 608,601 people or 40.17 percent of electorate supported theamendments.

In order for the proposed amendments to become a reality,the support of about 757,600 people was needed.