This week it was revealed that Prime Minister Evika Siliņa’s use of airport VIP lounges has cost taxpayers nearly 36,000 euros. The Prime Minister herself considers this entirely normal, arguing that such privileges are appropriate for a high-ranking official. Another major development this week is the resignation of the State Secretary of the Ministry of Defence, alongside Defence Minister Andris Sprūds’s somewhat awkward explanation of the reasons behind it. To understand why these events have gained such scandalous attention, BNN spoke with political scientist Filips Rajevskis, co-owner of the company Mediju tilts.
“This is all starting to strongly resemble the Kariņš airplane story,” Rajevskis says about the VIP lounge scandal surrounding Siliņa. “There’s a saying that you can’t step into the same river twice—that the same thing doesn’t happen twice. But what’s truly surprising now is that a scandal of the same nature, with the same profile, is unfolding for the second time in almost the exact same way. It started with a single case at Amsterdam Airport and statements like ‘you are slandering me, I will take Citskovskis to court,’ and now we already have a scandal exceeding 30,000 euros over the use of VIP lounges. It all looks rather unattractive and very similar to what happened with Kariņš and private jet flights. This is an interesting phenomenon, because usually identical scandals do not repeat themselves in such a similar way—but here, within two years, we are seeing almost the same situation unfold again,” the political scientist notes.
He adds that it will be interesting to see how this scandal develops and how it ultimately ends. As is known, the previous scandal concluded with Krišjānis Kariņš stepping down as Minister of Foreign Affairs and with the demotion of former head of the State Chancellery Jānis Citskovskis.
Responding to BNN’s question of whether such privileges are indeed standard worldwide for high-ranking officials—and whether they freely use airport VIP lounges—Rajevskis emphasizes that the issue is not really about VIP lounges themselves, but rather about the government’s unpopularity.
“When politicians are unpopular, situations arise where even relatively minor issues turn into major scandals.
This is not really a question of whether it was justified or not. In this case, it is more about public attitudes toward the Prime Minister and what people believe she deserves—or does not deserve—on a very personal level.”
The political scientist also points out that when Siliņa initially took office and still enjoyed a higher level of public trust, she used a private flight, yet the public reaction was minimal. “People largely didn’t care. She flew somewhere with European funding—so what? At that time, Kariņš had already drawn public criticism, and people paid little attention. Now we see that for a much smaller amount, a rather unpleasant scandal has emerged.”
Another “hot topic” this week is the resignation of State Secretary of the Ministry of Defence Aivars Puriņš and Minister Sprūds’ explanation that it was caused by “increased pressure on the defence sector and unfounded claims and criticism circulating in the public space.” But is it really plausible that someone with such extensive experience in security matters would suddenly be overwhelmed by media pressure?
“The State Secretary is a highly experienced professional in the military field.
These are not people with weak nerves. The issue is not that he could not withstand public pressure—in reality, there has been no significant public pressure on him at all. His public profile has been quite low, and his name has not even appeared in the scandalous coverage. It is more likely that the pressure came from Sprūds himself, and that the State Secretary was unable—or unwilling—to continue working with the minister and his office under those conditions,” Rajevskis suggests.
He adds that this conclusion can be drawn from how quickly the resignation was accepted. “It is possible that Sprūds, finding himself under heavy criticism, decided to make him a scapegoat—or applied pressure that Aivars Puriņš was not willing to accept.”
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