Just days before Latvia’s parliament is due to vote on who the country’s next head of state should be, President Valdis Zatlers has called for the dismissal of the Saeima.

Zatlers described the decision as radical and one that likely will ruin his chances for re-election.

In a nationally broadcast, 10-minute address the evening of May 28, Zatlers said from Rīga that a May 26 decision by the Saeima not to approve a search of businessman and MP Ainārs Šlesers’s homes “is like an alarm that points to a split between the legislative and judicial branches of government.”

Under the constitution, when the president calls for dismissal of the Saeima, a national referendum must be held on the issue. If voters support the president, parliament is dismissed and new elections are scheduled. If the voters fail to approve the referendum, the president must step down.

The Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau (Korupcijas novēršanas un apkarošanas birojs, or KNAB) announced May 20 that it had begun criminal proceedings against a number of public officials alleging they have engaged in “laundering of criminally acquired assets, providing false statements in the declaration of public official, misuse of the position, receiving and giving of bribes, illegal participation in property transactions and violation of restrictions imposed on public officials,” according to a press release.

Although the KNAB did not name who the proceedings target, media reports revealed them to be Ventspils Mayor Aivars Lembergs; businessman, Saeima member and People’s Party (Tautas partija) Chairman Andris Šķele; and businessman, Saeima member and For a Good Latvia! (Par labu Latviju!) head Šlesers.

The KNAB announcement pointed to a currently elected member of the Saeima who is involved in the transport sector, especially the Freeport of Rīga Authority. Šlesers was formerly minister of transport and before election to the Saeima was chairman of the Freeport’s board of directors.

In an extraordinary meeting May 26, the Saeima rejected a request by the KNAB and the prosecutor general to search Šlesers’s homes. The measure was defeated with 7 votes against, 35 votes for and with 37 abstentions. Sixteen MPs were not present for the vote.

Zatlers, fresh from a brief trip to Poland where he and other Eastern and Central European leaders visited with U.S. President Barack Obama, met earlier on May 28 with both Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis and Saeima Speaker Solvita Āboltiņa, according to Latvian media reports.

Zatlers’s four-year term in office expires in July. He has declared his candidacy for a second term, but his re-election by the 100-member has been far from assured. MP Andris Bērziņš, a member of the Union of Greens and Farmers (Zaļo un Zemnieku savienība) and former head of Unibanka, announced his candidacy for the position on May 23.

The 10th Saeima was elected in October.

Diaspora leaders support president

Juris Mežinskis, chairman of the American Latvian Association (Amerikas latviešu apvienība, or ALA), told Latvians Online in an email that he personally supports the president’s initiative to dismiss the Saeima. The ALA during its annual congress earlier this month accepted a resolution backing the re-election of Zatlers.

The ALA has already contacted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and will also contact the Central Election Commission in Rīga to ask that polling stations for the referendum be set up in as many locations in the United States as possible, Mežinskis said. During the October parliamentary elections, 15 polling stations operated in the U.S.

The World Federation of Free Latvians (Pasaules brīvo latviešu biedrība, or PBLA) also supports the re-election of Zatlers. The organization’s chairman, Mārtiņs Sausiņš, said in an email that he personally backs the president’s call to dismiss the Saeima. Sausiņš said he congratulates Zatlers for being a courageous statesman.

Alberts Upeslācis, chair of the council of the Latvian National Association in Canada (Latviešu nacionālā apvienība Kanādā), also applauded Zatlers. The president’s decision to stand up against Latvia’s oligarchs is comparable to the lone Chinese man who stood against tanks in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, Upeslācis said in an email, referring to a famous image from the 1989 pro-democracy protest.

“It could turn out that it is Zatlers who begins the change in Latvia,” Upeslācis said, “because no serious politician has clearly and directly spoken out against the increasing influence of the oligarchs.” The people will vote for dissolution of the parliament, he added, but it is not possible to predict the outcome.

(Updated 29 May 2011)

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.