The President, not politicians, should propose candidates for posts of heads of independent state institutions, such as the Bank of Latvia or State Audit, said former Latvian President Valdis Zatlers in his interview to LTV programme Rīta panorāma.
He said this when asked to comment the elections of a new head for the Bank of Latvia, which failed due to political bargaining. The ex-President reminded that about 15 years ago, a proposal to change the procedure for selecting candidates for the highest professional positions state institutions had appeared, but it was not accepted.
Zatlers drew attention to the fact that, for example, there were no discussions among members of the Saeima regarding the approval of the Commander of the National Guard Kaspars Pudān as the Commander of the National Armed Forces, and the vote was almost unanimous, because the President of Latvia selected and proposed the candidate for this position.
“We need a normal head for the Bank of Latvia, not a mouthpiece for politicians,” added Zatlers.
He believes that the unsuccessful process of selecting candidates for the Governor of the Bank of Latvia, is a “comical failure of political parties”, and only one party is not to blame. “The crisis came out of nothing. There was no criticism of [Mārtiņš] Kazāks’ work as President of the Bank of Latvia in five years, and there was no criticism even in those days when he was made a candidate again,” said the ex-president.
Consequently, he concluded that the failure to elect the President of the Bank of Latvia was based on nonsense or too much intrigue. Zatlers later added that nonsense is more common than highly refined schemes.
As previously reported, on Thursday, the 19th of December, the Saeima failed to elect a new Governor of the Bank of Latvia. This is because two coalition parties decided to withdraw their proposed candidates, and the remaining candidate from the opposition failed to secure support from the parliament.
Because of this, Vice-Governor of the Bank of Latvia – Māris Kālis – will serve as the Acting Governor of Latvia until a new head of the central bank is elected.