RIGA - Even before the final vote on Indulis Emsis, some of the country's political analysts and most influential politicians were echoing official statements made by outgoing ministers that the minority coalition would be dependent on left-wing political forces backed by Moscow.
Analyst Aivairs Ozolins at the daily Diena wrote in the March 9 edition that champagne bottles would be popping at the Russian Embassy in Riga once the Emsis-led Cabinet was approved.
Ozolins suggested that such a development would represent one step further toward a "Moscow victory in the Latvian elections."
The highly regarded analyst also spelled out views previously hinted at by fellow political observers and insiders - including outgoing Prime Minister Einars Repse-by saying that the new Cabinet coalition set up by Green Emsis may actually be the work of far shadier and more influential people, namely Ventspils Mayor Aivars Lembergs and former Prime Minister Andris Skele.
Lembergs and Skele are both considered two of the richest and most influential people in the country, despite their claims that they do not take an active role in national politics.
The immediate aim of the Emsis-led coalition would be to "secure corporate power" over the state in a final run before the Baltic state joins the EU and NATO, said Ozolins. This, he added, was a move that outgoing prime minister and self-proclaimed anticorruption zealot Repse and his party New Era were unlikely to cooperate with.
The harsh comment suggested that the future coalition would focus on "property rights over the power of state," with money influencing political authority, suggested the analyst.
Ozolins stressed that there were still a few state-owned entities that could be sold off by the next government at discount prices to an inside group of buyers.
It follows that the future path of Latvia will not necessarily reflect the much-touted "Scandinavian model," said Ozolins. There are clear examples of corrupt EU and NATO countries, for example, Greece and Portugal, which Latvia may follow, he wrote.
Emsis, the analyst wrote, apparently expects his coalition to remain in tact with the open or silent support of Parliament's left-wing factions, even though he promises not to give in to any of their demands regarding national issues - i.e., education reform.
How this may be possible remains a mystery to most political observers in Latvia; even die-hard communist and head of the Socialist Party Alfreds Rubiks said in a newspaper interview last week that the left-wing now "has Emsis on a hook."
With respect to this development, Ozolins said that the People's Party, unquestionably a right-wing party, was to blame for the increased influence Moscow has on Latvia's political life.
In Ozolins' opinion, the party's withdrawal from the proposed minority coalition and further cooperation with the New Era faction would be the only right way for Latvia.
Ozolins also suggested that the current coalition and its apparatus of civil servants have obviously a few tasks left to complete, such as "managing" the use of hundreds of millions of euros in EU structural funds.
How exactly such a coalition would "manage" issues related to Russia also remains unclear, as the proposed government declaration also states that it would support unconditional World Trade Organization membership for Russia and that it would solve "rising ethnic tension" in the Baltic state.
The recent spate of ethnic tension is regarded by right-wing parties as having been cooked up by left-wing parties predominantly supported by the ethnic Russian segment of the population in an attempt to paint the state's planned minority education reform in discriminating colors.
Ozolins stated that these moves regarding national issues and the growing influence of left-wing forces-for years rumored to be supported and even funded by Moscow-would promote the establishment of a dual community in Latvia. Such a schism is the goal of Moscow, as it would then be able to keep a foothold in Latvia, a EU and NATO member within less than two months.
The Diena analyst suggested that the certainty with which the People's Party and others defended the new Cabinet and the compromise PM Emsis leaves observers such as he with the grim impression that a clandestine deal on how Latvia should be governed in the coming months or years has been cut, and worse, that the politicians involved are merely carrying out orders.
Outgoing Defense Minister Girts Valdis Kristovskis and Foreign Minister Sandra Kalniete - both of whom played active roles in Latvia's independence movement - issued a statement on March 9 saying that they found it unacceptable that any future government coalition calling itself right-wing would be formed with the support of those once standing opposed to the country's independence over a decade ago.
They said that these developments threaten all that the country has fought for in recent decades.
