OPINION | Political theatre: Siliņa’s government cleverly manipulates public disillusionment

Opinion piece. Author: Ilona Bērziņa

One of the trump cards up the sleeve of [Latvian Prime Minister Evika] Siliņa’s government is society’s relatively short and selective memory. The main thing is finding an appropriate scapegoat, over which to direct lightning and thunder of public disillusionment. And why shouldn’t it be the naïve “Progressives” in big politics?

In August, compared to June, according to the results of the SKDS poll, all political parties in the ruling coalition experienced a drop in ratings. The largest of them – by 2.2% – was New Unity’s (JV). Moreover, this political force does not even hide that it is hardly worried about it, and in a sense they can be understood. At least for now, the JV communicates crises quite elegantly, shifting them, as people say, from the sick head to the healthy.

One vivid example of this is the government’s decision to shift one percentage point from the 2nd pension pillar to the first. In the first two days, more than 17 thousand signatures were collected against this idea on the public participation platform “Manabalss.lv”. To date there are more than nineteen and a half thousand signatures, but the initiative itself was submitted to the Saeima on the 16th of September.

So what? For the government, it’s like water for a duck, because the lack of a basic budget has to be patched up somehow? Only this time, the head of government, like other members of the ruling coalition, has been Machiavellian in her communication with the public. The PM, who was Minister of Welfare in the government of Krišjānis Kariņš, made it clear in the “Rīta panorāmā” that banks are to be blamed for all of this, which will now lose their share of profits and “the first pension pillar it will now be entrusted to the state instead”. In turn, the state, as is known, is white, fluffy and generous, because it indexes pensions. (If someone is unaware, the social tax paid into the first pension pillar goes into the state purse and is paid in the form of pensions to today’s pensioners, the contributions of the second pillar are the property of the person, they go to private pension funds, are inheritable and the task of this money is to make money on the financial markets.)

Of course, the question of how much money paid into the second pension pillar really earns has been and remains a painful issue. However, if the state feels that private pension funds for people’s old-age savings are not the best option, there is always an opportunity to look, find and offer a better one. Estonia’s experience of allowing those who wish to withdraw from the 2nd pension pillar and withdraw the accumulated money was perhaps not the worst option at all. Perhaps our Ministry of Welfare will also inflate its cheeks and offer an option for voluntary accession to the 2nd pension pillar, but it is quite clear that no one will pay people the money accumulated in it.

Why did I mention the Machiavellian tactic? It’s simple – neither banks nor bankers are at the top of the “crush chart” of the population and therefore it is not difficult to shift citizens’ dissatisfaction from decision-makers to “those damn financial speculators”. But if so, why hasn’t there been any investigation and no one has been brought to justice in the more than twenty years since the system has been operational? Or are we dealing with an empty mulling whose main function is to serve as a lightning rod?

There are two whole “progressive lightning rods” in the government already. Kaspars Briškens, it would seem, has earned this role mainly thanks to many pointless speeches, and Andris Sprūds has earned this title with the not so successful communication about the “friendly” Russian drone. The stunt with the drone “helped” topple the illusion that the safety of Latvia and its residents are in safe hands. The loss of this confidence is what residents are unlikely to forgive to the minister.

But Mr. Briškens’ situation is special. First of all, it is difficult, if not impossible, to believe that the failure of the Rail Baltica project was as unexpected and unpleasant a surprise for him as it was for the rest of the Latvian society. The years he has spent as RB Rail’s strategy and development manager is not something that can be swept under the rug. Well, and, of course, there is the revolutionary idea of the Ministry of Transport about the construction of a new so-called “Russian gauge” railway from the Riga Central Railway Station to the Riga Airport. It is really just such a bean peel alone that the construction of such a railway line is now in no way compatible with the TEN-T Regulation? (A slight detour: that regulation states that new lines on the core network or on the extended core network may only be built on European standard track gauge, thus narrower.)

But perhaps the mess with Rail Baltica and the catastrophic shortage of finances is not enough for Latvia, and we desperately need some new mess. If Mr. Briškens’ has burning need to build a track, why not connect the Central Railway Station and Riga Airport to the tram line? In any case, it would be both more logical and reasonable, and it would not ruffle Europe’s feathers.

We can only agree with politologist Filips Rajevskis’ statement to BNN, that Briškens absorbs the negative very well, and the moment he is forced to leave the Ministry of Transport, all of the problems with Rail Baltica and airBaltic will fall on our PM’s head. Neither she, nor New Unity need this right now, which is why Briškens can feel safe in his post. After all, any government needs its very own scapegoat.