Another candidate for president of Latvia has emerged, giving incumbent Valdis Zatlers even more of a challenge in his bid for re-election.

Five members of the Union of Greens and Farmers (Zaļo un Zemnieku savienība, or ZZS) announced May 23 that they will nominate party member and former Unibank head Andris Bērziņš to become the next president. In Latvia, the president is selected by a vote of the 100-member parliament.

Bērziņš was elected to the Saeima in 2010.

Zatlers, who became president in 2007, has already declared his candidacy, but some political observers have suggested he might not have enough support in the Saeima to get the 51 votes needed to be elected on a first ballot.

Zatlers has the support of the Unity coalition (Vienotība), which together with ZZS control the government. However, the fact that some in ZZS now back Bērziņš for Latvia’s next head of state could spell trouble for Zatlers.

The World Federation of Free Latvians (Pasaules brīvo latviešu apvienība) and the American Latvian Association (Amerikas latviešu apvienība) have both endorsed Zatlers.

Two leading exile organizations have expressed their support for the re-election of Latvian President Valdis Zatlers, whose first four-year term in office ends in July.

The World Federation of Free Latvians (Pasaules brīvo latviešu apvienība, or PBLA) and the American Latvian Association (Amerikas latviešu apvienība, or ALA) say Zatlers has proven himself a capable leader and urge the parliament to re-elect him.

Zatlers is the only person who has declared his candidacy for president, although several other politicians have been mentioned. Under the Latvian constitution, the president is elected by a simple majority of the 100-member Saeima.

Zatlers in 2007 replaced two-term President Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga, who was Latvia’s first female president. He was elected with 58 votes and was a compromise candidate offered by the coalition government. At the time, Zatlers was chairman of the board of the Hospital of Traumotology and Orthopaedics in Rīga. Critics opposed his election because of his lack of political experience and because he admitted accepting bribes from patients—a common practice in Latvia’s health care system.

However, both the PBLA and ALA applauded Zatlers’s performance as president.

“In the past four years, Valdis Zatlers has become a statesman who is respected in Latvia and internationally, and who is politically independent of those who elected him,” Mārtiņš Sausiņš, chairman of the PBLA, wrote in a May 20 letter to the Saeima.

The president has properly represented Latvia abroad and has strengthened ties with allies, Sausiņš wrote. He has the done the right thing when necessary, such as after the January 2009 riot in Rīga’s Old Town district, when he issued an ultimatum to the government and the Saeima that put an end to the so-called “locomotive principle” in parliamentary elections.

In dealings with the diaspora, Sausiņš wrote, Zatlers has been very responsive on issues of interest to Latvians abroad.  For example, the president has supported renewing dual citizenship for Latvians abroad, supported the Museum of the Occupation, and backed the teaching of Latvian history as a separate subject in Latvian schools.

The ALA adopted a resolution during its 60th anniversary annual meeting in Milwaukee, Wis., supporting the re-election of Zatlers.

“The ALA supports the election of V. Zatlers to a second term not only because during these four years he has grown into the office and done much for the sake of Latvia, but also because we know that for him the law, morality and ethics are not unfamiliar concepts,” ALA Chairman Juris Mežinskis and Public Affairs Director Jānis Kukainis wrote in a May 18 announcement.

Among the ALA’s priorities are encouraging U.S. economic investment in Latvia.

“Unfortunately,” Mežinsksi and Kukainis wrote, “we spend much time polishing Latvia’s image, because in the West there remains a perception that Latvia is governed by the rule of money, not the rule of law.”

A second term for Zatlers, as well as the continued work of the coalition government led by Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovsksi, are important for Latvia’s emergence for economic crisis, they wrote.

While a number of political parties have lined up in whole or in part behind Zatlers, it is not completely clear that he will gain the 51 votes needed to return as president. Political observers have mentioned parliamentary Speaker Solvita Āboltiņa, a member of the Unity coalition, as a potential candidate should Zatlers not get enough ballots on the Saeima’s first vote.

An official signature drive that could lead to a constitutional amendment making the state language the only one to be used in government-sponsored schools is under way in Latvia and in Latvian communities abroad.

The petition campaign began May 11 and will continue until June 9.  The collection of signatures is organized by the Central Election Commission in Rīga.

The commission on April 11 ordered the campaign after confirming that the National Alliance (Nacionālā apvienība “Visu Latvijai!” – “Tēvzemei un Brīvībai/LNNK”) had obtained at least 10,000 signatures supporting the constitutonal amendment. The conservative political association started collecting signatures last year in an effort to convince lawmakers that Latvian should be the only language of instruction in public schools.

If by June 9 at least 153,232 eligible voters—a tenth of all those who cast ballots in the last Saeima election—sign the petition, then the Saeima would be asked to consider a bill that would amend the Latvian constitution. Specifically, the bill would change Section 112, which gives all people in Latvia the right to an education. According to current wording of the section, the state guarantees education at the primary and secondary levels. The amendent would add that the guarantee extends to education in the state language, which is Latvian.

Additional language in the bill would require the change to take effect by Sept. 1, 2012.

However, if the Saeima rejects the amendment or alters the bill, then a national referendum on the issue would be called.

In Latvia, a total of 622 stations will operate where eligible voters may sign the petition.

Abroad, 45 stations have been established, according to the Central Election Commission. They include the Latvian embassies in Beijing, Berlin, London, Paris, Moscow, Ottawa and Washington, D.C., as well as in Vienna, Austria; Baku, Azerbaijan; Minsk, Belarus; Brussels, Belgium; Prague,  Czech Republic; Copenhagen, Denmark; Cairo, Egypt; Tallinn, Estonia; Helsinki, Finland; Tbilisi, Georgia; Athens, Greece; Budapest, Hungary; Dublin, Ireland; Tel Aviv, Israel; Rome, Italy; Astana, Kazakhstan; Vilnius, Lithuania; The Hague, Netherlands; Oslo, Norway; Warsaw, Poland; Lisbon, Portugal; Ljubljana, Slovenia; Madrid, Spain; Stockholm, Sweden; Ankara, Turkey; Kiev, Ukraine; and Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

Also on the list are the Latvian consulates, consulates general and honorary consulates in Adelaide, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney, Australia, as well as the Latvian House in Brisbane; Vitebsk, Belarus; Santiago, Chile; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Kaliningrad, Pskov and St. Petersburg, Russia.

The complete list, including addresses and hours, is available as Microsoft Excel spreadsheet file from the election commission’s website, www.cvk.lv.

More things to sign

Voters who wait for a week will have the opportunity to sign another petition.

From May 18 to June 16, a signature campaign will take place about three recently approved laws that would have continued caps on various welfare payments to Latvia’s residents, according to the Central Election Commission. President Valdis Zatlers was forced to suspend the laws on April 19 after 37 opposition members of parliament asked him to do so.

Under Latvia’s constitution, if more than a third of Saeima deputies asked for a law to be suspended, the president must oblige them. An official petition drive follows and if the signatures of at least 10 percent of eligible voters are gathered, the suspended law is put to a national referendum.

However, if not enough signatures are recorded, then the president must publish the law.

The three laws are part of the government’s budget cutting effort and would extend restrictions on a variety of welfare payments, including the maternity allowance and jobless benefits.