LTV programme De Facto reports a meeting held by New Unity (JV) leaders with representatives of the Union of Greens and Farmers (ZZS) and Progressive Party. These parties previously met before President Egils Levits decided to withdraw from the presidential race and Minister of Foreign Affairs Edgara Rinkēvičs became a candidate.
This meeting makes the partner parties in the coalition worry a lot, LTV reports. It is worth adding – this kind of half-secret meeting creates a very negative look for JV’s sudden flexibility in principles.
Although the National Alliance (NA) and the Combined List (AS) advise against linking presidential elections to the government’s stability, both parties say they are prepared to work in the opposition if attempts to add changes to the coalition are made.
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On Wednesday, the 10th of May, a meeting was held, and this topic has been very hot in the backstage of Latvia’s political arena for the second consecutive week now.
De Facto reports that JV’s representative and the head of Latvia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Edgars Rinkēvičs, who was not yet an official presidential candidate, PM Krišjānis Kariņš and another heavy-weight politician Jānis Reirs participated in this meeting.
Progressive Party delegated their Saeima faction head Kaspars Briškens, Saeima deputy Andris Šuvajevs, as well as the party’s Riga City Council faction leader Mārtiņš Kossovičs to this meeting.
ZZS sent its board chairman and Saeima secretary Armands Krauze, Saeima faction leader Viktors Valainis and Ukdis Augulis to this meeting.
That very same evening President Egils Levits publicly announced his decision to withdraw from the presidential race. He had personally informed the chairman of NA Raivis Dzintars of his decision, because this party had previously officially named Levits as their presidential candidate.
JV claims Rinkēvičs was announced in an emergency after Levits announced his decision. Raivis Dzintars does not believe this:
“New Unity working on a different scenario – including a potentially new coalition model – is the result of Egils Levits dropping out from the presidential race, not the other way around. […]
I don’t know if there was one meeting or multiple. I allow that this communication has been going on for a while and
the whole thing was in preparation when New Unity still supported Egils Levits as a candidate. But what seems very important for the National Alliance – is New Unity truly prepared to pay the price: having [ZZS prime minister candidate Aivars] Lembergs’ party and Progressive Party’s presence in the government? The question is whether it happens before the 31st or a week, month or six months later. But is New Unity prepared to pay the price? If they are, we believe this is playing with national security interests.”
When asked about the meeting in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and whether results of elections could influence the coalition, Latvia’s PM Krišjānis Kariņš was evasive:
“I have spent three weeks in a row in attempts to convince coalition colleagues that, since we have two candidates with support in the coalition – Levits and Pīlēns – and that neither have any sway in support, we believe it may be a good idea to sit down and discuss a solution. My partners rejected this option – they said they are not interested.
Levits has since dropped out from the race, and we have selected our own candidate. […] I attempted to achieve a unified approach – it failed. Now I am forced to act accordingly – everyone has their own candidate, and it seems to me I have a slightly stronger candidate.”
Progressive Party’s representative Andris Šuvajevs told De Facto that the meeting was organised in this format. He also said the objective of his party there was to attempt to convince two of Saeima’s largest factions to support their candidate Elīna Pinto.
New Unity leader Jānis Reirs told the programme that he was asked to participate in the meeting by JV faction leader Ainārs Latkovskis. The objective of the meeting was to try to convince Progressive Party to vote in favour of Egils Levits’ re-election even though the party has already officially announced its own candidate.
“That Wednesday we discussed support… support for the current president. Information was collected, because we understand the coalition has no support for the president. We wanted to know what political parties were thinking,” Reirs told De Facto about the meeting of the 10th of May.
When asked if it turned out Levits announced his withdrawal from the election race when JV was gathering votes for him, Reirs said: “Well I cannot tell you the schedule – last week was very intense with all kinds of development. You’d have to look at a diary or something the like.”
ZZS board chairman Armands Krauze told De Facto that he would rather not comment on any specific discussions. When asked if they discussed with other political parties the potential consequences from presidential elections, he said it is “theoretically possible”:
The version that during the meeting held in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs participants discussed possible new government configurations becomes credible according to what Progressive Party’s faction leader Kaspars Briškens said. He claims both JV and ZZS have the same opinion – that under the current coalition Latvia cannot progress forward.
“We can see that in the current geopolitical situation we cannot consider deviating from our geopolitical course, but when it comes to the economic policy, industrial policy, the fight against inequalities, the fight for the rule of law, for better governance in capital companies, including by not appointing political inserts to port boards or state-owned capital companies, including how capital companies can be managed more effectively, for example, by issuing either bonds or minority shareholdings also on the stock exchange, so as to give the same impetus to the development of the capital market – all these issues are stuck,” said Briškens.
Saeima’s AS faction leader Edgars Tavars mentioned multiple times this week that his political party will not pout if its founder Uldis Pīlēns is not elected as president.
Like the leader of NA Raivis Dzintars, AS representatives both publicly and in the backstage claim that:
a new coalition would have to be coordinated with Ventspils city council deputy and leader of For Latvia and Ventspils Aivars Lembergs,
who was this party’s official prime minister candidate despite being under US sanctions and having been found guilty of severe crimes of corruption by a court of first instance just recently.
ZZS Saeima faction leader Viktors Valainis explained negotiations with worries of coalition parties about their positions:
“There is a panic, and it seems to me that this is more a fear of political competition.”
Also read: National Alliance worried New Unity may be working on a new government behind the scenes
New Unity’s half-secret meeting with opposition puts coalition partners on edge
