Speculation over the looming presidential election is intensifying in Latvia, and the fate of incumbent Valdis Zatlers—who announced he is available for a second term but who is opposed by many—is clearly hanging in the balance.

Meanwhile, issues of language and education have once again come to the fore with some unusually alarmist warnings about potential ethnic strife if a referendum approves that all teaching in state–financed schools be in Latvian only.

Uncertainty over the next president

The next president will be elected by the Saeima (Parliament) in mid-year. In Latvia’s strongly parliamentarian constitutional system, the president is largely a symbolic figure, with limited political powers. However, the past two presidents, Zatlers and before him Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga, have turned the job into a less purely symbolic position and have had greater political influence.

The significant problem of the presidential election is the complete absence of rules and transparency as to how the Saeima goes about the process. Infamously, Zatlers himself, a successful and respected medico with no real political background, was persuaded to stand (at a meeting at a zoo!) by a handful of oligarchs, and his election rammed through the Saeima despite widespread protests.

In something of an irony, Zatlers slowly proved that he was no lapdog of the then-ruling People’s Party (Tautas partija) and was not remiss in criticising the previous Saeima and government. Zatlers is certainly not the most charismatic of presidents, but in his doggedly persistent style he demanded and got several changes to the electoral laws and to laws relating to how the Saeima can be dismissed. He also demanded a more transparent process in electing future presidents, which has only been half realised. Now there must be a public announcement of a list of possible candidates before the Saeima decides, but otherwise the selection process can still be less than transparent.

It is clear that the oligarch parties—the rump of the People’s Party and their mates in the For a Good Latvia! (Par labu Latviju), as well as elements of the Union of Greens and Farmers (Zaļo un Zemnieku savienība, or ZZS)—are happy to ditch their once favoured son and go for someone more malleable. ZZS in particular still promotes its controversial Ventspils Mayor Aivars Lembergs, who has been accused of corruption, as a candidate.

This leaves the leading government party Unity (Vienotība), which is in coalition with the ZZS, in a difficult position, being virtually forced to back Zatlers, fearing a more oligarch-friendly candidate may get the job. The ZZS has recently been clearly flexing its political muscles, and on several occasions has been able to get its candidates for various positions accepted by different alliances in the Saeima against Unity’s desires, putting strains on the coalition. The presidential election promises to be one more such battleground.

Schools teaching in Latvian only?

On the language front, the campaign by the nationalist bloc in the Saeima to have all state-financed schools switch to teaching in Latvian only has moved to the next stage. The proposal relates to the long-standing issue of Latvia still having a large Russian-language primary and secondary school system, a heritage from the Soviet period.

Although these schools now all teach an increasing number of subjects in Latvian, and in secondary schools the proportion taught in Latvian must be at least 60 percent, the existence of the Russian school system continues to prop up a very divided society.

For the National Alliance (Nacionālā apvienība “Visu Latvijai!” – “Tēvzemei un Brīvībai/LNNK”) this has been anathema, and it has proposed that starting with the first grade in September 2012, progressively all teaching in the Russian stream schools will take place in Latvian. Moreover, the nationalists want this written into the constitution.

The nationalists’ proposal was defeated in the Saeima, but they are now using the mechanism of a referendum to gain support.

In Latvia’s referendum system, such changes to the constitution may be proposed by the citizens, and the first step is gathering 10,000 notarised signatures by citizens who support such a change. This number of signatures has now been gathered, which will cause the Central Election Commission in turn to start another signature-gathering exercise, this time financed by the state. If 10 percent of the eligible number of voters sign in this phase (around 153,000 signatures are needed), then the Saeima must debate the proposal. If the Saeima approves the proposal, it will become part of the constitution. However, if the Saeima disagrees, then the issue goes to a referendum. It is not an easy path for such a constitutional change, but a possible one.

Although the issue has been around for years, the success in gathering these initial signatures has brought a remarkable reaction. As a copycat response, a small Russian splinter party started its own signature-collecting campaign, this time calling for Russian to be made the second official state language. Launched with great fanfare, the campaign ran into a farcical situation when most of the early keen signers were in fact not citizens of Latvia, hence ineligible to sign. We also saw a paradoxical situation that the Russia-leaning party Harmony Centre (Saskaņas centrs) opposed the move. Harmony Centre is no friend of the Russian splinter parties, even though several if its individual politicians have not so privately supported the idea. Harmony Centre policy remains support for one official language only—Latvian. The party has been very clearly positioning itself not to alienate ethnic Latvian voters, showing strains over the issue. An independent social survey revealed that some 35 percent of Latvia’s residents supported Russian as a second official language, but 63 percent opposed it. Non-citizens constituted a significant proportion of those supporting Russian.

More ominous responses were not long in coming. Already during the initial signature-gathering, some politicians—particularly from the pro-Moscow For Human Rights in United Latvia (Par cilvēku tiesībām vienotā Latvijā), which no longer is in the Saeima—threatened violence if the nationalists’ constitutional amendment is accepted, as it would mean a virtual elimination of the Russian school system. These words were echoed in early April by Europarliamentarian Aleksandrs Mirskis, who threatened a “civil war” if the proposal is accepted. Mirskis called European attention to what he called a direct threat to Russian identity and Russian schools, and claimed that proponents of the constitutional amendment were “nationalists and Nazis” in the Saeima, igniting further passions. While the rather idiosyncratic and usually aloof Mirskis is not a significant political force in Latvia, this is an unusual extreme example of rhetoric, where politicians of all sides tend to be more circumspect over issues of integration and nationality.

The appointment March 3 of new Ombudsman Juris Jansons showed the extreme political difficulties faced by the government of Prime Minister Dombrovskis, and gives ominous signs of continuing political corruption in Latvia.

In this unsavoury incident, Dombrovskis’ coalition partner—the Union of Greens and Farmers (Zaļo un Zemnieku savienība, or ZZS)—refused to come to an agreement on which candidate to put forward, and supported Jansons, who had been nominated as a candidate by the Russian-oriented Harmony Centre (Saskaņas centrs). 

In an exchange of accusations, Dombrovskis warned that by supporting this candidate ZZS was threatening to destabilise the coalition, and was going against the spirit and letter of the formal written coalition agreement. ZZS’s leader, the highly manipulative former apparatchik Augusts Brigmanis, countered by saying this did not go against the agreement at all and demanded an apology from Dombrovskis for suggesting destabilisation. Moreover, he argued that ZZS had supported Jansons when the prime minister’s party, Unity (Vienotība), had dawdled in presenting its own candidate.

This issue had been going on for several months, with a previous candidate of Unity being blackballed by ZZS in earlier discussions. In the end Unity did select another candidate, Anita Kovaļevska, a judge in the Administrative Court with a strong academic and judicial background in human rights, who was strongly supported by several non-government organisations and convincingly won a phone-in vote in a televised debate with her opponent.

Jansons, also a lawyer, has worked in mostly judicial-administrative and financial areas, and after his election said he was desiring to consult with Kovaļevska with her expertise on human rights. More tellingly, he also said that he would work to make the future selection process for the ombudsman more “democratic and publicly understandable”!

Secret ballots, transparent manipulations

This appointment and its machinations raises a number of issues. First, to vote on the candidates the Saeima again engaged in that most unusual of parliamentary practices: a secret ballot. Never used in most parliamenatry systems, the secret ballot showed its ability to hide corrupt practices in April last year with the appointment of a new chief prosecutor, when incumbent Juris Maizītis was not re-elected though all parties had publicly supported him and not a single speech was made in the Saeima against his candidature.

Jansons was elected 53-40, but at least this time all parties had openly declared their support for the various candidates (so the result was not the shock it was in Maizitis’ case). Moreover, there was debate in the Saeima on the relative merits of the candidates. For those supporting Kovaļevska, the emphasis was on her judicial and academic background and expertise in human rights. Those supporting Jansons argued that administrative expertise, not human rights expertise, was more important in this position.

One other argument emerged for Jansons. The odious oligarch Ainars Šlesers reached the nadir of debate when he argued that he would favour Jansons as he openly supported “family values,” the usual code for politicians employing conservative moral and religious values to mask their actual view of politics as lucrative business and promoting one’s own. Suitability for the job was never a highly ranked criterion for those like Šlesers in the hypocritically named For a Good Latvia! (Par labu Latviju!), which sided with ZZS and Harmony Centre to push their candidate through.

Second, these proceedings give us an insight into the political lie of the land in the parliament, and particularly the central place that ZZS now occupies. The great strength of ZZS is not just its own 22 seats in the 100-member Saeima, but in its strategic position to be able to go with either Unity (33 seats) or Harmony Centre (29 seats) to form a majority. Formally in coalition with Unity, the Jansons episode, like the Maizītis episode where ZZS was clearly the force that stopped his appointment, shows it cares little for coalition niceties when it seeks to assert its influence. A strong ombudsman is not in ZZS interests. In recent months there have been a series of appointments to various government boards and institutions with ZZS people well represented, but the appointments have come often with little transparency.

In other ways, however, ZZS at the moment seems to have no thought of abandoning the coalition. It is aware that its own party and membership would be solidly against going into coalition with SC, and currently ZZS has the best of all possible worlds—being in a coaliton, so contributing to overall policy and governance through its ministers and appointments, but also able to play the field, picking and chosing issues on which to diverge from its coalition partner, and always reminding Dombrovskis of his limited capacity to determine policy. The presidential elections due mid-year may be the next time for ZZS to move in this fashion.

An ombudsman in difficult times

Finally, spare a thought for the ombudsman, or tiesībsargs. This position has only been established for three years, and the process of finding a candidate led to a prolonged standoff. Finally Judge Romāns Apsītis, a reluctant candidate from Day 1, was elected as a compromise candidate. He did not vie for re-election, and rated his own work in the office as middling. As is custom, the ombudsman only has powers to recommend, and the frustration Apsītis felt in battling the bureaucracy was evident. Each of the years of his office has seen a decline in the numbers of people seeking its help, a problem that Jansons promised to address.

However, this is not to give up hope for Jansons. In recent years several appointments that were seen as politically favouring lesser qualified candidates have turned to bite those who appointed them and believed they could be kept on a leash.

Aleksejs Loskutovs, former director of the Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau (Korupcijas novēršanas un apkarošanas birojs) is one such example. He became a popular hero when the government attempted to sack him in 2007.

President Valdis Zatlers, elected by the Saeima in 2007, was widely seen as a lap dog for the then government but has also shown far greater independence than what his appointers had hoped. We shall watch with interest how candidates are found for the presidency.

The more sordid side of Latvian politics has been well shown in recent weeks with a bizarre robbery at a small provincial casino, stopped by police after a shoot-out in which one officer died, only to find out that among the apprehended robbers were—policemen!

Meanwhile, at another level, there has been growing unease about the over-exploitation of Latvian forests, an issue now gaining some unusual international attention.

Cops and robbers: Which is which?

The armed robbery took place Jan. 25 at the Fēnikss casino in Jēkabpils. During the hold-up, casino staff alerted authorities through a silent alarm. The local police arrived quickly to chase the robbers, ending up in a shoot-out after the robbers’ car was trapped in a cul-de-sac. In the shoot-out one Jēkabpils policeman was killed, and three of the robbers and two local policemen wounded. When the identities of the robbers were discovered, most of them were found to be former or current policemen, and two of them belong to the special police tactical response group Alfa, some of whose other members had also previously been involved in criminal activity.

This shocking incident reveals some of the long-suspected links between members of the police and organised crime. It also gives a very good introduction to the phenomenon of money laundering, and to the confusion over responsibilities for the supervision of police and related justice proceedings.

The incident had a number of extraordinary features. First, the stolen sum—reported by the casion owners as LVL 104,500, but later found by the police to be nearly LVL 400,000— is a huge sum for a small provincial gaming room, where daily takings would average around LVL 1,000.

Second, the robbery on a day when this large sum of money was at the casino (and had not been put in a nearby bank) attests to inside information at work. Who was in collusion with whom?

Third, and perhaps most unusual, the robbers seemed careless in their approach, as if they were surprised the local police would follow. They did not have a clearly learned escape route. And, curiously for such well-trained security people, they lost in a shoot-out with lightly armed local police, albeit killing one of their number.

The incident has created a political storm, and renewed attention to flaws in the legal system.

The large sum involved would indicate serious money laundering. A typical “story” to explain this huge sum in such a casino is that an (unknown) passing Russian millionaire appeared, gambled with the money and lost, and disappeared again. After paying the regular amount of tax (a stupendously low 15 percent in Latvia’s still unbalanced taxation system), the casino owners can keep the remainder as legitimate income. The illegal money to be laundered may come from the still thriving black market in cigarettes, alcohol and other contraband goods in Latvia, or from even further afield.

There is now serious concern over the continued viability of Alfa as an operational unit. This comes after other highly criticised actions of Alfa, notably last year a physical attack on peaceful and mostly elderly protesters in Bauska opposing the closing of the local hospital. The Jēkabpils incident on top of this and other sometimes criminal activity of Alfa operatives have now raised calls for the Interior Minister Linda Mūrniece to resign.

As a coda, the subsequent trial process has caused extra concern. National television showed the accused being convoyed to the place of trial, escorted by masked security personnel, with the accused also having a mask over their eyes, as well as being manacled in such a fashion that they needed to walk stooped, and be bodily hauled up stairs. Having their own clothes taken away for forensic examination, the accused were issued by prison personnel with ill-fitting garments several sizes too large, further inhibiting movement. These manacled and manhandled accused became an item of interest to the State Ombudsman, who wrote to the police asking if this treatment of the accused was not demeaning and against their human rights. Unfortunately, one other grotesque aspect of police operations in Latvia is the unnecessary use of force or intimidation in many aspects of their work.

This incident is likely to have far-reaching consequences for police operations and investigation of criminal activites. Yet in the past there has been little political will to tackle corruption in the police force and uncover money laundering, with poor supervision and loopholes in laws allowing such continued criminality.

Latvia’s pulp fiction and Al Jazeera

Latvia’s environmental problems and the uneasy relation between business and politics has been highlighted internationally by an unlikely source. On Feb. 2 well-known Middle East news channel Al Jazeera in its English language edition presented a documentary on the mismanagement of Latvian forestry and the rapacious growth of its uncontrolled forestry industry.

Over the last year, according to the documentary, Latvian timber exports have grown by a staggering 53 percent, with some 150 logging teams cutting some 15 million cubic meters of timber a year, twice the legal limit set by the government in its forest management policy. Large areas are being clear-felled, and the cutting is proceeding at twice the rate of any replanting, raising serious concerns about the viability of Latvia’s most precious natural resource.

Entitled “Latvia’s Pulp Fiction,” the documentary showed that the state-owned Latvian timber corporation Latvijas valsts meži (LVM) representatives and government officials claimed this growth of logging was a temporary measure, aimed at providing employment during the current economic crisis. Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis in the same documentary defended the government policy.

Another scandal revealed in the documentary concerned the false use by LVM of certificates issued by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), an international nongovernmental organisation that certifies timber is being sustainably produced. FSC stopped issuing certificates to LVM last year after an investigation found that the rate of logging was not sustainable. Despite this, buyers were still being told all timber was FSC approved.

After the screening of the documentary, the FSC released a statement saying that “it would now like to point out that the Latvian state-owned timber company or LVM have no FSC certificates issued to them that allow them to claim that their forests are either FSC certified in full or are covered by a controlled wood forest management certificate.”

Latvia’s forests are a precious national asset, and the operations of the loggers are now too blatant to not be recognised by any resident who takes an afternoon drive from any Latvian city. Again, the question of political will is paramount: illegal logging has been rife in many countries, but in Latvia it is being pursued by a state-owned corporation, obviously with powerful political support. This strikes at the root of the nation’s continuing sustainability.