A number of deputies from the Saeima faction United List (Latvian Green Party, Latvian Regional Alliance, and Liepāja Party) have raised questions about Foreign Minister Baiba Braže’s background, work experience, and the environment and circumstances that shaped her values and principles, nra.lv reports.
To ensure that the public has full and accurate information about such a high-ranking official as Baiba Braže, on the 4th of September deputies submitted a formal request to the Saeima Presidium, demanding that the foreign minister provide clarifications. Deputies want clarity on several episodes in the minister’s biography.
“United List deputies noticed certain strange metamorphoses. In nature, a metamorphosis is when a caterpillar transforms into a beautiful butterfly. Here we see a reverse metamorphosis – a butterfly turning back into a caterpillar,” explained MP Edvards Smiltēns (United List) in a Saeima session, referring to the interest in Braže’s past.
Braže will need to explain to deputies and the public why her CV submitted to the Saeima did not mention the Latvian Youth Progress Union (the direct successor of the LĻKJS – Leninist Communist Youth League of Latvia) as a former workplace, even though a 1990 post on Facebook identified it as such. Deputies also want to know what her duties and salary were during her work there.
They are also asking whether, on the 20th of December, 1991, Braže began working at the LJPS Central Committee as coordinator for international cooperation issues, and if so,
what her duties, salary, direct supervisors, and working language were in that committee.
Another point of concern is that her CV states she worked as a customs trainee in 1989–1990, even though the Latvian Republic Customs Department was only established on the 3rd of July, 1990.
In recent years, several cases have surfaced where parliamentary candidates have hidden facts from their biographies or altered them in a favorable way.
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