RIGA - Latvia was set to enter its third week without a consensus for a new ruling coalition, as center-right parties continued to negotiate over the exact leadership and composition of the country's next Cabinet to replace the outgoing one of Prime Minister Einars Repse.
Observers agree that any new government would have to include adversaries New Era and People's Party, which together now control 47 seats, and some collection of the remaining center-right parties - Latvia's First Party, the Greens and Farmers Union and For Fatherland and Freedom - which have 33 seats.
However, size and synergy between center-right parties have made forming a stable coalition difficult. Repse's New Era party has been a harsh critic of former Prime Minister Andris Skele's People's Party, but due to a lack of alternatives may have to join a coalition with it.
"There is no way to form a government without New Era and the People's Party," Daunis Auers, a political scientist at Latvia University's Eurofaculty, said.
As it stands now, the two competing blocks of New Era and For Fatherland and Freedom and People's Party and Latvia's First Party control 34 votes each after Latvia's First Party member Paulis Klavins defected to New Era on Feb 16.
New Era has publicly stated that they will not work in a coalition with Latvia's First Party, particularly after the latter accepted five MPs from the leftist National Harmony Party, thereby leaving negotiations at a standstill.
Also, given the previous infighting between New Era and Latvia's First Party, analysts said that any new coalition with these two parties was unlikely.
"The idea that there could be a coalition with Repse and Slesers is just ridiculous," Karlis Streips, a political commentator, said.
Some didn't even rule out that New Era, by far the most popular political party according to polls, would be left out of the new Cabinet.
Maris Grinblats, head of for Fatherland and Freedom's parliamentary faction, has reportedly said that there is a 50-50 chance that New Era and For Fatherland and Freedom would not be in the next coalition.
With the addition of the five leftist deputies, little unites Latvia's First Party with the People's Party ideologically, but both seem in league to counterbalance Repse's block of power should they join the coalition.
"People's Party is a little afraid to enter into a coalition with New Era without Latvia's First Party. [Party members] fear they will be made the scapegoat in the future, as LFP is now," Artis Pabriks, a political scientist from Vidzeme University, said.
Any future coalition is complicated by the fact that multiple defections have come into play.
"The situation is descending into utter chaos," Auers said.
Regardless, whatever working arrangement is hammered out among center-right politicians, the next prime minister will eventually be put forth by President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, who is unlikely to choose anyone until she is confident he or she will be able to form a coalition.
Considering recent critical comments of Repse's leadership, the president could choose another member of New Era to head the coalition.
"Vaira Vike-Freiberga is not going to jump into the fire unless she can see the other side," Streips said.
But New Era has been firm in its support of Repse as the only acceptable prime minister in a Cabinet the party would work in.
"We have to wait for the president to make a decision. It's the president that chooses someone - not Mr. Repse," Aures said.
If a ruling coalition cannot be put together the president may be forced to call a referendum on new elections. But with both EU and NATO accession approaching, Vike-Freiberga undoubtedly hopes she will not have to make that decision.
