The thing that is slowing the coalition formation process in Latvia is the style employed to organise negotiations. Politicians engaged in the process are the ones to blame for the slow process, says Saeima’s speaker Edvards Smiltēns.
«Mr. Kariņš has a ruling, authoritarian style in leading coalition negotiations.»
He says there were ultimatums voiced immediately on day one, specifically that there would be no four-party coalition. «This was the main story for the first four weeks. After that discussions veered towards coalition-related topics.»
«The next was the ultimatum regarding creation of a new ministry, which would mean tearing up Ministry of Economics and Ministry of Environment Protection and Regional Development. We had to yield. The next story was about the memorandum the text of which consisted of priorities provided by New Unity, it was not a document that was composed during negotiations with all partners of the coalition. In the end the Combined List (AS) and National Alliance (NA) managed to squeeze in a couple of topics important to them.»
Smiltēns says he is not happy with the way the possible distribution of seats in the government was announced. «Five minutes after signing the memorandum we entered the press-conference hall, and Kariņš, pulling a piece of paper from his pocked, read his verdict – that parties have this to say about ministries».
«[We] has questions as to why the distribution of seats is what it is, considering there weren’t any consultations in the past and parties weren’t asked about their strongest political vectors. I believe the proposed distribution of seats was not based on analytics or the strong sides of each faction. This outlined the authoritarian styled employed in negotiations.»
The new speaker of the parliament also said the main criterion the coalition has agreed on is that ministers have to be absolutely competent in the fields entrusted to them. «Candidates have to have knowledge and understanding of their respective sector. This is logical.»
«Another criterion for the minister responsible for the interior affairs sector, for example, is that the new minister needs to be able to implement incredibly difficult reforms and make fast, timely decisions for us to overcome the crisis more easily,» said Smiltēns.
«This means using each faction’s potential to the maximum potential in order to maintain public trust and letting other coalition partners know the PM wants a successful government.»
Smiltēns also said he agrees with President Egils Levits – the government cannot go back to how things were. «We cannot go back to simply distributing seats, putting together elite farms of sorts and then worry about getting them to work together for the next four years.»
We need cooperation! This includes cooperation in topics like child care and topics of demographics. These sectors have multiple ministries «living in them». If these topics are not combined into a clear policy with involvement from multiple departments of ministries working together on resolving issues, nothing will change, says the politician.
In conclusion Smiltēns stressed: «We are given people’s trust, and voters are not interested which ministry goes to who, only what we can change and accomplish in the posts entrusted to us.»
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