There is little belief that Prime Minister Evika Siliņa’s government will still exist after one week, LETA was told by political analyst and public relations expert Filips Rajevskis.
According to him, the way the election of the President of the Bank of Latvia was handled was a clear sign of growing tension within New Unity.
At the same time, he said the way the PM’s proposed government “restart” was being handled this whole time is another sign of internal tension within the party. It was after this “restart” that the Minister of Education and Science Anda Čakša lost her post.
“All this indicates that all of these reforms are discussed within very narrow circles, and this is not good from the party’s political viewpoint,
and does not inspire confidence the PM has a great deal of support within her own party,” said Rajevskis.
He also reminded that when the state budget was in the process of being approved, the head of Saeima’s Budget and Finance Committee Jānis Reirs went into direct confrontations with his fellow New Unity member and Minister of Finance Arvils Ašeradens. “There are many symptoms of internal tension,” said Rajevskis.
As for the decision by Mayor of Cēsis Jānis Rozenbergs to withdraw his candidacy from the race to take the seat of Minister of Education and Science, the political analyst said Rozenbergs most likely had the feeling that he may not receive this post, and that the government might collapse.
“I don’t think he [Rozenbergs] would have lost to internal competition, rather to external competition over whether or not this government would last,” said Rajevskis.
He also pointed to the PM’s prediction that on Thursday, the 27th of February, the Saeima may vote in new ministers. “There is nothing of the sort – it’s looking to go slowly and painfully,” said Rajevskis.
The political analyst said the change in Siliņa’s government was a surprise for all coalition partners except Progressives. He said meeting with coalition factions will not be an easy task for the PM. “With that, there is no faith in this government having support from the Saeima or it even existing in a week from now,” said Rajevskis.
According to him, the internal tension in New Unity and the weak relations within the coalition could cause the government to collapse.
He judged that prior experience shows New Unity has a difficult time when there are large factions. The political analyst pointed out that there are currently 25 people in the New Unity group, and when they saw the election results, the members of the group had high expectations. “The sense of victory generates expectations – “we’re in charge now”. This only serves to lower the value of partners in their eyes,” said Rajevskis, adding that if New Unity’s external attitude towards partners was more equal, there would be no need to switch coalitions.
According to the political analyst, the resilience of the three-party coalition until the next Saeima elections will be a very difficult test if such a decision is made.
When evaluating alternative coalition options, Rajevskis said that ideally it should be a four-party coalition with an adequate margin of votes in the parliament, and this would also lead to the strength of the government. As Rajevskis explained, the weakness of both this and previous governments led by Krišjānis Kariņš was precisely the low number of votes in parliament, which makes it difficult to make decisions.
Rajevskis assessed that an alternative to the coalition would be four ideologically close parties – New Unity, Union of Greens and Farmers, Combined List and National Alliance.