The extraordinary events of March 10-14 have thrown the Latvian political system into unprecedented turmoil. It has turned on its head almost all previously held suppositions about the political situation: a seemingly strong and unshakeable coalition – the first government ever returned after a Latvian election – now looks vulnerable and amazingly immature in its response to the crisis. Meanwhile, a president who some took to be simply biding her time to the end of her period of office with one stroke has seemingly swung the balance of power away from an increasingly panicky government. And the first of Latvia’s oft-accused oligarchs, Ventspils mayor Aivars Lembergs, has been arrested on serious charges of corruption—for many the cherry on the cake

On March 10, President Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga used her constitutional power to delay the proclamation of amendments to Latvia’s security laws, amendments passed twice by the Saeima. She had already sent them back the first time but they was passed unchanged by the Saeima again. According to Latvia’s constitution, a president in such circumstances can delay proclamation for two months, but then a chain of events is automatically triggered leading to a possible referendum: the Central Elections Commission begins the task of collecting signatures from citizens who want a referendum to decide on the legislation’s fate. If 10 percent of the number of voters who voted in the previous Saeima elections sign for a referendum, it must be held. This will require around 150,000 signatures. This is the first time this specific mechanism has been put into effect since the regaining of independence.

That is the constitutional side. The surrounding politics are intense.

Concerns over the security legislation relate to both its content and the process by which it was pushed through. The legislation increases parliamentary supervison of the various security services including military intelligence services, and increases the number of people—parliamentarians but also their aides and people designated by them—who can have access to operative information of the security services. Such concerns came even from the NATO defense alliance.

Concerns over the content were heightened by the way the legislation was pushed through. It was first adopted by the government during a Saeima recess, on the basis of another rarely used power in the constitution in Article 81: the power a government has to adopt important legislation when the Saeima is in recess, but then has to have this approved by the Saeima on its return—a provision common to many democracies but used sparingly and largely only for emergencies. Despite protests, the goverment also gagged debate when it pushed the amendments through the Saeima, citing the most serious national security urgency for doing so.

The goverment melts

Latvia has had referendums before, most notably in 1998 when the then government won a bitterly contested referendum on changes to the citizenship law, but on this occasion the response saw the government in disoriented damage control. Prime Minister Aigars Kalvītis immediately offered to drop the contentious legislation—so much for national urgency—and various coalition leaders also offered to repeal Article 81. No one in the government stood up to defend the legislation, which had been pushed through with such insistence on its importance. Amazingly, talk swiftly turned to whether the govenment should stand down or whether it will fall, despite its comfortable majority in the Saeima, and many urged the president to dissolve the Saeima. It is a pregorative in the constitution but has never been used.

So cravenly apologetic has the government been, and so unable to defend its actions, that speculation increased on why it had tried so hard to push its legislation through. The government had been accused of using the legislation to corruptly help its mates in business forestall various corruption and shady deal investigations. Others have pointed to the sheer arrogance of a government that beleived it could do anything with its majority. Its abrupt abandonment of its legislation (it clearly fears it has no chance of winning the referendum) and complete turnaround on a number of related issues has given the appearance of a political rabble, with veteran commentator Aivars Ozoliņš characterising the government’s response roughly as “Anthing, anything, just don’t spank us!”

The arrest of Lembergs just four days later turned an already peculiar crisis into more of a circus.

Oligarchs

No more common term of abuse in Eastern Europe exists than “oligarch.” President Vladimir Putin justified his undemocratic grab of all significant power in Russia as a defence of the nation against oligarchs reaping fortunes off Russian resources and sucking the country dry. Latvia’s far less ostentatious oligarchs have in turn not escaped investigation, as in last year’s “Jūrmalgate,” where the buying of votes in the mayoral election involved Tautas partija (People’s Party) ex-leader Andris Šķēle and Latvijas Pirmā Partija (First Party of Latvia) leader and chief nasty Ainārs Šlesers, who was dumped from the Transportation Ministry for his involvement but now is back in office. The concluded Jūrmalgate trial admirably sentenced the smaller front figures to gaol terms, but the shadow remains over Šķēle and Šlesers. All along such figures have claimed the criticism of them is politically motivated, seeking to discredit hard-working leaders and economy-enhancing businessmen.

Lembergs is seen as the most significant of the oligarchs, and until now the most unreachable, ensconced in his Ventspils mayoral seat with its glittering civic environment. He did however wander into the political field when the aļo un Zemnieku Savienība (Union of Greens and Farmers) proposed him as a presidential candidate—a proposal from which it is now also hastily retreating.

Significantly, the president herself had briefly touched on her concerns that the security legislation could be used to favour oligarchs—she used that word—when delaying the legislation. And when Lembergs was arrested on the morning of March 14, the conspiracy theories were given full rein. Was there a connection between the presiden’s actions and the impending arrest of Lembergs? Did the president know? Can this be coincidence?

Lembergs was arrested for a series of alleged corrupt deals largely dating from the mid-1990s involving undeclared offshore arrangements and a conflict of interest with his mayoral position. He was denied bail as it was feared he could attempt to obstruct justice. His lawyers and the newspaper he owns, Neatkarīgā Rīta Avīze, are working overtime to argue the conspiracy. But in more poor news for the government, other figures such as a controversial coalition candidate for the Constitutional Court has been linked to poor court decisions made in favour of Lembergs.

Opposition paper Diena is somewhat glowing that its own theories of the danger of oligarchy, which it has argued repeatedly and somewhat repetitively, seem to be justified.

And what a time for a great opposition political party to reassert itself and take full advantage of the situation to demand a change to a disorganised and defensive government. But it is not to be, as the main opposition party, Jaunais laiks (New Era) is embroiled in inter-party disputes, and its increasingly criticised leader Einars Repše has said little, mouthed a few populist slogans, and remarkably has been rather distancing himself from the fray.

This completely unanticipated presidential initiative has revealed a worrying weakness in government and the formerly invincible coalition parties. While much still remains to work itself out, it has seriously steered Latvian politics away from “business as usual.”

The past year in Latvian politics was not only eventful, but one that could well be pivotal: an election and a new government (and, surprisingly for Latvia, a continuation of the previous government); a successful NATO defense alliance summit; a continuing high profile for President Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga; an economy running almost red hot, and a by now usual lot of scandals, new and continuing.

The central political event—the 9th Saeima election—was unique. No new party arose to challenge the major incumbents, which had been a recurring pattern in previous elections. Moreover, this was the first time the coalition that governed before an election was able to achieve a majority in the election, and the first time that a prime minister holding office before an election was reappointed after that election. The coalition of Tautas partija (People’s Party), Zaļo un Zemnieku Savienība (Union of Greens and Farmers) and Latvijas Pirmā partija (First Party of Latvia, or LPP, now combined with the Latvijas ceļš, or Latvia’s Way) gained a bare majority of 51 spots in the 100-seat Saeima. But the coalition took the small Tēvzemei un brīvībai / LNNK (For Fatherland and Freedom/LNNK, or TB/LNNK) into the coalition to feather the majority.

The big losers were Jaunais laiks (New Era), strongly supported by Latvian voters in the West, but losing favour in Latvia itself after withdrawing from the coalition in early 2006 and its once popular leader, Einars Repše, becoming widely distrusted.

A big winner was Saskaņas centrs (Harmony Center), which broke away from the previous pro-Russian coalition Par cilvēku tiesībām vienotā Latvijā (For Human Rights in a United Latvia, or PCTVL) and re-badged itself as a party willing to take a constructive place in Latvian politics and government.

How should this surprising election result, and seeming stability at last in political party composition, be understood? Two fundamentally irreconcilable interpretations have quickly come to the fore. One is the claim of stability and a consolidation of effective government. The coalition is popular, has not made any huge mistakes in government, its leading opposition party is in disarray, economically the country is bounding ahead and the government is attending effectively to seemingly insuperable problems of low incomes and poor social conditions. (You can see this line continually supported in the daily newspaper Neatkarīgā Rīta Avīze.)

Equally strongly, critics of this government (you can see them clearly in another leading daily newspaper, Diena) see it as a consolidation, certainly, but a consolidation of oligarchy. For these critics, the leading party officials see government as their own private business, particularly Prime Minister Aigars Kalvītis, Tautas partija’s behind-the-scenes leader Andris Šķēle and the head-kicking leader of LPP, Ainārs Šlesers.

Certainly, one of the most worrying aspects of the new government is the steady politicisation and insisting on appointing its own (“savējos“) to sensitive positions. Most recently, the main coalition parties tried but failed to appoint Tautas partija member Ringolds Balodis to the position of ombudsman. A spectacularly poorly qualified candidate, this law professor‘s main specialty is law of religion. He seemed totally out of depth and was proven to be so quite starkly in a television debate with the other candidate, Rasma Kārkliņa. Proposed for the position by TB/LNNK, she is a Western Latvian and author of a recent major work on post–Soviet corruption, The System Made Me Do It. But she was anathema to the ruling coalition parties, so in the end no candidate got sufficient votes in the Saeima, leaving the president fuming—once more—over the indecisiveness of the Saeima.

Even worse for its implications was the appointment to the Constitutional Court (Satversmes tiesa) of three candidates who were each severely criticised as inadequate by the Saeima’s own Judicial Affairs Committee. But the same parliamentarians from the coalition parties who expressed this criticism in the end voted for the candidates in the Saeima.

And in a move of extreme cynicism, the coalition appointed once-head LPP guru Jānis Šmits to chair of the Saeima Human Rights and Social Affairs Committee. Šmits, a Lutheran prelate, was notable in 2006 for his extreme homophobia and sustained attack on the Rīga Pride march, and his otherwise overtly authoritarian stance on every social issue. So bad had his reputation become that he was not elected in his own right to the Saeima (his own party supporters crossed out his name in droves), but came into the Saeima with a so-called “soft mandate,“ replacing another LPP member who was appointed a cabinet minister.

Increasing concern over the coalition parties—matched by a total impossibility of any chance of redress—came to a head when a group of minor parties brought a court action claiming illegal overspending by the coalition parties during the election campaign. Groups of people closely allied to the coalition had organised themselves into independent NGOs and produced extensive advertising before the election, praising the incumbents and the economic prosperity they had brought to Latvia. The court came to the not very difficult conclusion that this was a subterfuge to circumvent campaign spending limits, but declined to order the elections invalid.

And another moment of foreboding is the government’s volte face on the need to sign a border agreement with Russia with a unilateral attachment detailing the past history of border agreements, which also includes the loss of the previous Latvian territory of Abrene. Having derailed a previous attempt to sign the border agreement by insisting on such an attachment, the government now insists the signing can go ahead without such a statement, and that the legal continuity of the Latvian state back to pre-World War II days can be guaranteed by other means. This will demand the closest scrutiny.

The present mood of the coalition may spell a difficult time for Latvians abroad. The hostility to Kārkliņš revives a previous history of antagonism to Latvians from the West, most notably in the temporarily lapsed proposal to make a large number of public positions closed to people with dual citizenship.

Moreover, the LPP is increasingly warming to the idea of uniting with the large Saskaņas centrs, which has been downplaying being pro-Russian and now presents itself as a party very much of the centre with a desire to be in government. This too has a background: over the past couple of years Moscow has slowly turned away from its previous great hope—the hard-line pro-Moscow faction in PCTVL with its strident oppositionalism—and has increasingly wanted a party that could be in government. Saskaņas centrs fits this bill perfectly, and the question can be asked whether we are seeing a genuinely moderate new party or a Trojan horse.

Meanwhile, for LPP and its ambitious leader Šlesers an amalgamation would provide an opportunity to become the largest party in the Saeima. The politicians of Saskaņas centrs (and of course PCTVL) are unreservedly hostile to Latvians from abroad playing any part in Latvian affairs. Unless the coalition in its present or expanded form trips up on its own ambitions—a not impossible course of events—we may all be in for a tough four years.

The wait is over. Companies from all around the world are releasing products that now include Latvian as a selectable language. And we’re not just talking Apple, Microsoft and other computer-related products, but everyday devices such as mobile telephones, digital cameras, MP3 players, home media players, pocket organizers, car navigation systems and even the latest blockbuster films.

For many years now we have been able to write in Latvian using Windows- and Macintosh-based computers. The introduction of the Unicode standard more than a decade ago has quashed the issue of incompatible operating and writing systems providing the ability for software developers to easily add foreign language support, including the Baltic languages, to their software products. We now have access to hundreds of Latvian language fonts (even for the Latgallian and Liv languages) as well as Latvian spelling and grammar checkers, thesauruses, dictionaries and other useful Latvian language tools. But it hasn’t stopped there. This same technology is now finding its way into home appliances and other must-have gadgets For the first time ever we are also seeing the Latvian language supported in these devices in all its glory—with all of the obligatory “mīkstinājumi“ and “garumzīmes“.

Nokia has been a pioneer is this area for many years. If you purchase a Nokia mobile telephone in Latvia it will most likely come preinstalled with the Latvian language and you will be provided with a Latvian version of the user’s manual. Nokia has also gone one step further and adapted its T9 predictive text technology for the Latvian language, allowing for fast and convenient texting in Latvian. Sony Ericsson is not far behind by also offering T9 for Latvian and there are even third party Web sites such as DaVinci Team that allow you to add Latvian language support irrespective of where the original handset was purchased. Another option for those who have purchased their mobile handset outside of the Baltics is to visit the Elkor Service Centre at Brīvības 201 in Rīga, where for a small fee your handset can be quickly converted to Latvian while you wait. But be warned, as this could void your existing warranty and may not work on all models.

As you navigate through your new Latvian-enabled mobile telephone you’ll come across terms such as “Izvēlne” (Menu),  “Īsziņas” (Text messages), “Iespējas” (Options),  “Režīmi”  (Settings) , “Palīgrīki” (Extras), “Paņemt” (Select),  “Zvanu arhīvs” (Call register), “Aktivizēt” (Activate) and others that will no doubt enhance your existing vocabulary. Since several Latvian and Polish firms have been involved in the Latvian language localisations for Nokia, Sony Ericsson, BenQ-Siemens, Motorola and Samsung, this has caused inconsistencies in translations. For example,  “Settings” is referred to as “Uzstādījumi” on Nokia phones, but “Iestatījumi” on other brand handsets.

Apple’s popular portable media player, the iPod, will perfectly display Latvian letters not only in the companion iTunes software, but on the actual iPod screen as well. Insert a new Latvian music compact disc and, after a brief query to an Internet-based music database, the track names and other details are retrieved with all the correct Latvian letters. Earlier versions of the iPod had some troubles and the accented letters would vanish altogether, for example, “ui, mana lgavia” (Čuči, mana līgaviņa), but that is now a thing of the past. Microsoft’s new Zune media player will no doubt also understand Latvian, but because Europeans won’t see this model until next year this has yet to be verified. Other media players such as the Squeezebox have also recently begun to correctly display Latvian letters on its large fluorescent display, so you can not only view what track is playing, but have live Latvian news streaming into your living room. Make sure that you have at least version 6.5 of the SlimServer software, otherwise question marks appear in place of accents, for example, “?u?i mani l?gavi?a (“Čuči, mana līgaviņa”) making it quite unreadable.

Olympus started an advertising campaign earlier in the year proclaiming its new digital cameras were the first to support the Latvian language. Both the navigational menus and image viewer software on the mju700, mju 810, mju 720SW, FE130 and FE140 models are available in Latvian. Around the same time the portable GPS car navigation system, TomTom Go, also became available. A male Latvian voice provides the friendly driving directions, and there is a interface and menus on the screen. The unit sells for about LVL 400.

Linux, which already has a significant share of the server market, is now making its way to the workstation as more organizations decide to migrate to OpenOffice.org, a free open-source alternative to Microsoft’s Office software. The Linux Centre at the University of Latvia together with the Latvian Open Source Association have developed Latvian-language support for the desktop (GNOME 2.14/2.16 and KDE) as well as a Latvian version of OpenOffice 2 with spellchecking. The software is available as a free download from their Web sites.

Even the animation blockbusters from Hollywood such as Šreks 2 (Shrek 2), Haizivs stāsts (Shark Tale),  Ledus laikmets 2: Atkusnis (Ice Age 2: Meltdown), Vāģi (Cars), Trauksme mežā (Open Season) and Aizskalotie (Flushed Away) are getting the Latvian treatment and are now professionally dubbed in Latvian using well known Latvian actors—no more monologue or dialogue as you may still encounter on Latvian television. The first such DVD, Ledus Laikmets 2: Atkusnis, fully dubbed in Latvian and with the additional option of Latvian subtitles, began appearing in stores last month.

I have not even broached the subject of application software such as the Latvian version of MS Office 2003, the Latvian hyphenation option in Adobe InDesign and many others, but the list grows on a regular basis. It is truly a pleasure to see that major companies from around the world are beginning to adapt their products for Latvians. I have started a dedicated blog called latviski.lv where you can also submit new Latvian-friendly products.