Evika Siliņa’s government “restart” is not going as smoothly as expected. The dismissed ministers of transport, education, and welfare have returned to the Saeima, but the nomination of new candidates to fill the now vacant ministerial positions is not progressing well. So far, only the Union of Greens and Farmers has announced its candidates. Is the government’s fate truly hanging by a thread? BNN asked political analyst and co-owner of Mediju Tilts, Filips Rajevskis.
“The situation is very complicated. This process has started to drag on and deviate from the plan set by the Prime Minister. However, time is always the greatest enemy for such changes,” explains Rajevskis. He emphasizes that changes must happen quickly and decisively; otherwise, they might not happen at all or could even bring down those initiating them.
When asked whether the Prime Minister’s planned government “boost,” including ministerial replacements, had been previously discussed with coalition partners, Rajevskis said no. “There have been no real political consultations about these changes. This is evident from the reactions from her coalition partners.”
A possible escalation could result in Siliņa’s government collapsing.
Rajevskis agrees, noting that the Prime Minister is struggling to manage the process she initiated. “Both the Union of Greens and Farmers and the Progressives are calling her to faction meetings to explain her ‘boost plan’ and the reasons behind dismissing their ministers. As a result, she cannot move past the dismissal process, let alone nominate new ministers. This prolongs the situation and makes it highly unstable,” says the political analyst.
As for Mayor of Cēsis Jānis Rozenbergs declining the opportunity to become the next Minister of Education and Science, Rajevskis remarks that Rozenbergs has good self-preservation instincts. “Better to have ‘a bird in the hand,’ meaning the mayoral position in Cēsis, than to be a minister for a short while.”
In response to BNN’s question about whether voters’ memories are so short that by the municipal elections this summer—or even by the 15th Saeima elections in October next year—people will have forgotten all the turmoil surrounding Siliņa’s government, Rajevskis says that by taking the right steps, the party could achieve a good result in the parliamentary elections. However, he adds that at the moment, nothing indicates such a direction, making it more of a theoretical assumption.
When asked whether New Unity is theoretically capable of taking these right steps, Rajevskis responds that so far, there is no indication of such a thing happening.