A provisional count of a signature drive shows that no referendum will occur on making Latvian the official language of instruction in state-sponsored schools, say officials of the Central Election Commission in Rīga.

The effort to force a referendum on amending Latvia’s constitution appears to have fallen about 30,000 signatures short of the required 153,232, which represents 10 percent of the number of voters in the last Saeima election.

The signature drive organized from May 11 to June 9 garnered 112,608 signatures, according the election commission spokeswoman Kristīne Bērziņa.

With 29 of 45 locations abroad reporting, another 907 signatures can be added to the count, she said in a June 10 press release.

In addition, the final count is to include 10,140 signatures tallied on the petition that initiated the call for a referendum. The National Alliance (Nacionālā apvienība “Visu Latvijai!” – “Tēvzemei un Brīvībai/LNNK”) began collecting signatures last year in an effort to convince lawmakers that Latvian should be the only language of instruction in public schools. The election commission on April 11 ordered the signature campaign after receiving the petition.

If enough signatures had been gathered, then a national referendum would have been held that would have asked voters whether they support proposed changes to the constitution. If the referendum had succeeded, then the Saeima would have been asked to consider a bill to change Section 112 of the constitution.

Section 112 guarantees that all people in Latvia get an education at the primary and secondary levels. The amendment would have stipulated that the guarantee extends to education in the state language, which is Latvian.

Latvia’s new president will be lawmaker and former Unibanka head Andris Bērziņš, who defeated incumbent Valdis Zatlers in a Saeima vote June 2.

The 66-year-old Bērziņš, who was nominated by five members of the Union of Greens and Farmers (Zaļo un Zemnieku savienību), won 53 votes on the second ballot. He will take office in July, becoming Latvia’s fourth president since the country regained independence in 1991.

Zatlers, who was elected by the Saeima in 2007, apparently ruined his chances of re-election after he announced May 28 that he was initiating dismissal of the parliament. A national referendum on the dissolving the 10th Saeima is scheduled July 23.

The incumbent president was nominated for re-election by the centrist Unity (Vienotība) coalition, which controls 33 seats in the 100-member Saeima. On the first ballot, Zatlers also was assured eight votes from the right-wing National Alliance (Nacionālā apvienība “Visu Latvijai!” – “Tēvzemei un Brīvībai/LNNK”).

On the first ballot, Bērziņš received 50 votes in favor and Zatlers got 43 in favor. On the second ballot, Bērziņš earned 53 votes and Zatlers got 41. Members of parliament voted in secret.

Bērziņš was born in 1944. He graduated from the State University of Latvia in 1988 with a degree in industrial planning. From 1993-2004, Bērziņš was president of Unibanka, which became the Swedish-controlled SEB.

Bērziņš has been criticized by some observers as similar to the oligarchs that Zatlers has targeted in his effort to dismiss the parliament. The new president’s income declaration includes more than EUR 2.1 million in an account in SEB.

This year’s “Supertalka” at the Latvian center Gaŗezers in south central Michigan could use some extra help after strong winds uprooted dozens of trees and damaged several buildings during the late afternoon of May 29, according to administrators.

Gaŗezers, located in St. Joseph County about 5 miles (8 kilometers) west of Three Rivers, Mich., is in an area that was hit by severe storms, according to the National Weather Service (NWS) office for northern Indiana. An EF1 tornado, with winds ranging from 94-104 mph, is confirmed to have touched down north of Three Rivers, but no report has been made that it might earlier have hit Gaŗezers.

However, the same storm that spawned the tornado appears to have caused the damage to the Latvian property.

The storm began about 4 p.m. local time, Māra Kore, the information and development director for Gaŗezers, told Latvians Online in an email.

“The storm came up quickly,” she said, “but it also passed very fast.”

No injuries were reported at Gaŗezers, Kore said, in part because many people who might have been at the center were attending the American Latvian Association’s Sports Championship in Cleveland, Ohio, or a large church confirmation ceremony in Indianapolis.

Weather service and emergency management officials conducted a damage assessment in the area on May 30. They found that straight line winds were responsible for felling hundreds of trees beginning in an area just north of Long Lake (where Gaŗezers is located), according to the NWS.

Many homes in the area were damaged by falling trees, while the wind also blew shingles off roofs. The Latvian-owned Atbalsis resort located near Gaŗezers lost electrical power but suffered little damage, Kore said. Most of the damage was confined to the north side of the Gaŗezers territory and the Latvian residential area nearby.

Gaŗezers administrators were still assessing the damage and were expecting to learn May 31 what repairs will be covered by insurance. It still is not known if Gaŗezers will need to organize a donation drive to help offset costs of fixing the property, Kore said.

All events and activities, including the summer high school program, are expected to take place as scheduled, she added.

The “Supertalka” work bee is scheduled June 4 at the center, 57732 Lone Tree Road, Three Rivers, Mich. For further information, visit the Gaŗezers website, www.garezers.org.