Bloc, created for the election of the new president Edgars Rinkēvičs – New Unity (JV), the Union of Greens and Farmers (ZZS), and Progressive Party – and the proposal of PM Krišjānis Kariņš (JV) to expand the coalition has made a political crisis, in which there are many unsaid things; MP and his party spoke, but their words lack logic and consequence.
Raivis Dzintars, the Chairman of National Alliance, explains to BNN what is the position of his party in this situation.
So, speaking about the 52 votes in the presidential election, the trending expression “hidden deals” emerged. They are not so hidden, whatsoever: everyone can clearly see the desperate wish of JV to drag “green farmers” and the Progressive Party in government. How it looks to you – will there be any other “rewards” we don’t know of?
This is the question for those who formed the 52 votes.
But you are an experienced politician! Don’t you have any versions or suspicions?
I can only reflect on things that are clearly visible. It is the erosion of the “red lines” and, sooner or later, ZZS getting into the government. We don’t have much clarity about the mechanism of decision-making in the Progressive Party; besides, the organization, to be honest, is quite inexperienced. Maybe it was ready to support mister Rinkēvičs for, as the saying goes, a smaller price. But we have no doubts about the “farmers”:
the price is as we see it – the ZZS getting into the government.
Everyone knows the attitude of the National Alliance towards the Progressives. However, if you answer as openly as possible, does your party see ZZS as the possible partner in government? If not in this one, then in the next one?
I’ll say as openly as I can [smiles]: we haven’t discussed this issue, moreover – we deliberately avoid it, because it is not important right now. If Krišjānis Kariņš and JV would come up with an offer to expand the coalition with “farmers”, we would have to decide on it. However, judging by everything we see, this is not their vision, they don’t put this offer on the table, and thus we don’t see the necessity to word our opinion about every possible situation.
I think that JV needs to justify itself. They are the ones that once draw the brightest red lines and now want to erase them.
Now I need to become really impudent: is there a red line between National Alliance and ZZS? Yes or no?
I don’t have enough clarity about this:
what does the coalition with sanctioned Aivars Lembergs would mean for the national security of Latvia?
Until now, the JV with Foreign Minister in the first line warned that it would mean impending doom. So, first of all, we have to consider this.
Second, our party won’t make this kind of decision without cooperation with Combined List. In this convocation of Saeima, we see them as the closest party to us in the means of values and ideology. So, our priority is the government that unites similar parties. Only if the maths don’t allow us to form such a coalition, we can look for the next best option.
After the elections of the head of state, we had to hear and read criticisms directed at the National Alliance for refusing to participate in them. It was evasion of responsibility, concealment of position, and disrespectful behavior even for political veterans… Now that the tension of last week has come down a bit, do you still feel that it was the right thing to do?
Yes, I suppose that someone can have such an opinion. However, this, I dare to say, is not based on awareness of how decision-making is done. We understood well that voting against or not participating in the presidential election would not change the outcome. So, it was a matter of attitude: we wanted not to burn bridges, to observe neutrality towards the candidates nominated by both coalition partners – not in any way suggesting that they were not suitable for this position, but believing that it was possible to agree on a better one.
You say that the National Alliance “did everything possible to support the current President Egils Levits”. Do you have some tangible argument for this?
This is kind of a philosophical question. What has happened cannot be compared to a situation that has not happened. We know well the factions represented in the Saeima. We know what to expect from each. Maybe someone sees it, but I don’t see it – how exactly could we be even more supportive towards the President than we were? If someone tells me that, I can change my mind.
Many statements announcing the need to expand the coalition resembled, to put it mildly, lines from absurd plays. For example, the fear of your party and the Combined List that another government can be formed by arithmetically adding the Progressives and the ZZS – even though there is such a “red abyss” between the two as the Civil Union Law project.
You are not tempted to frighten New Unity, that you can just as arithmetically join together with the Stability? They + Combined List + your party = 38 seats. What if this would seem for the ZZS more tempting than “sleeping with the enemy”, that is, left-liberals?
We know that we will not beat New Unity in such tactical shenanigans. Therefore, we stick to a safe tactic – to speak what we believe in and what we really think. We don’t think that such a coalition model, as you mentioned, would be the best for Latvia, even if we could disturb Unity with it. We do not threaten with what we are not ready to implement right now.
Nor are we afraid of such threats from Unity. On the contrary, we tell it: “Don’t mess with us! If there are any obligations and you, Unity, are ready to fulfill them, then do it now, so that the government can return to normal work as soon as possible!”
When the ministers “sit on their suitcases” – and, God forbid, when they “sit” like that for a long time, not understanding whether we are allies or enemies within this coalition – no “dynamics” can be achieved. At the moment – I will allow myself to say so – precisely the uncertainty in Kariņš’s own actions is what is most disturbing the dynamics of the government’s work.
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