Parliament OKs corruption czar

With a warning to European Union candidates to clamp down on corruption ringing in its ears, Latvia's outgoing Parliament approved the Cabinet's nominee for an anti-corruption czar, seen as key to the nation's EU and NATO membership bids.

Guntis Rutkis, current deputy head of the state security police, was voted into office on Oct. 10, only a day after the European Commission recommended that Latvia be admitted to the EU in 2004 but warned that corruption in the ex-Soviet republic "remains a cause for serious concern."

As the former communist bloc mulled the challenge of sweeping out corruption from creaking communist-era institutions, an adviser to outgoing Latvian Prime Minister Andris Berzins said the nomination of Rutkis - the fifth attempt to find a suitable candidate - showed that Parliament took the executive's criticisms seriously.

In several recent high-profile cases, Latvian prosecutors have failed to pursue top law enforcement officials whose family members possessed property far beyond their declared sources of income.

Justice Ministry headhunters had previously put forward several other candidates for the corruption post, but they had all been rejected as unsuitable.

"The government and Parliament have well expressed their good will to start work with these problems," Berzins' aide Aija Poca said after deputies voted for Rutkis by 65 votes in favor, one against and 18 abstentions.

Latvia's President Vaira Vike-Freiberga also welcomed the move.

"Latvia cannot afford to wait any longer until an institution coordinating and raising the efficiency of the fight against corruption starts working," spokeswoman Aiva Rozenberga quoted her as saying.

However, the winner of Latvia's weekend election, Einars Repse, the former central bank chief who has made the fight against corruption a central plank of his policy, said the appointment was rushed as Latvia's anti-corruption law was currently not strong enough.

"If Mr. Rutkis believes the effective law is appropriate to fight against corruption then it does not say anything good about the prospects we are in for," he told the Baltic News Service.

The Latvian anti-corruption bureau is intended to replace numerous current institutions and the failure to find a boss had been an embarrassment not only for Latvia's attempts to join the EU, but also NATO, to which it hopes to receive an invitation at an alliance summit in November in Prague.