The next head of Latvia’s government might be a former finance minister, the current minister for regional development or a longtime member of the Saeima, if one of three political parties gets its way.

President Valdis Zatlers, who will have to nominate the next prime minister, was scheduled to have a series of meetings Feb. 24 with representatives from several political parties. Meanwhile, three parties already have put forward the names of whom they would like to replace Ivars Godmanis, who resigned Feb. 20.

The conservative People’s Party (Tautas partija), which has the largest representation in the Saeima, wants Edgars Zalāns to become prime minister. Zalāns, 41, is a member of the People’s Party board of directors and is the current minister of regional development and local government. The party announced Zalāns as its choice on Feb. 22.

The People’s Party, one of four parties in the current coalition government, joined with the Union of Greens and Farmers (Zaļo un Zemnieku savienība) to pressure Godmanis to step down. Godmanis is a member of Latvia’s Way (Latvijas ceļš), which is partnered with the First Party of Latvia (Latvijas Pirmā partija).

Conservative opposition party New Era (Jaunais laiks) announced Feb. 23 that it wants Valdis Dombrovskis to lead the new government. Dombrovskis, 37, is a former finance minister and currently is a member of the European Parliament. New Era has twice before nominated him to be prime minister, in 2006 and 2007.

Dombrovskis’ candidacy is supported by the Civic Union (Pilsoniskā savienība), a breakaway conservative party led by former foreign minister Sandra Kalniete and former interior and defense minister Ģirts Valdis Kristovskis.

The socialdemocratic Harmony Centre (Saskaņas centrs), meanwhile, has told the president that the next prime minister needs to be nonpartisan or come from its ranks—namely 49-year-old Jānis Urbanovičs, chair of the party’s parliamentary caucus. Urbanovičs has served in every Saeima since the restoration of Latvian independence. Representatives of Harmony Centre met with the president on Feb. 23, according to a press release from the party.

After a last-minute meeting with Latvia’s president, Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis announced Feb. 20 that he is stepping down.

In a press briefing following the short afternoon meeting, President Valdis Zatlers said he had accepted the prime minister’s resignation and will begin discussions Feb. 23 on choosing someone new to lead the government.

The prime minister’s decision came hours after leaders of two coalition partners, the People’s Party (Tautas partija) and the Union of Greens and Farmers (Zaļo un zemnieku savienība, or ZZS), told Zatlers that the government could not continue with its current makeup.

The prime minister will continue to govern until Zatlers invites a new prime minister and he or she is approved by the Saeima.

The prime minister said through a spokesman that he was ready to continue serving as long as necessary to protect his successor from assaults by the public and the mass media in the face of Latvia’s worsening economy and the need to fulfill obligations to international financial institutions.

Godmanis, a member of the First Party of Latvia / Latvia’s Way (Latvijas Pirmā partija / Latvijas ceļš), became prime minister in December 2007.

Godmanis survived a Feb. 4 parliamentary vote of no confidence that had been initiated by the opposition New Era (Jaunais laiks) party. But he irked the president the following week when the Cabinet of Ministers decided not to approve a government reorganization plan that Godmanis had promised to deliver. On hearing of the decision, Zatlers on Feb. 13 issued a statement saying he had lost confidence in the prime minister. However, following a Feb. 16 meeting with Godmanis, the two appeared to have resolved their differences.

Calls for the government to step down have been heard from different corners during the past several months as Latvia’s economy, once one of the fastest growing in Europe, began to collapse late last year.

New Era on Feb. 20 called on all parties in the Saeima, except for the pro-Moscow party For Human Rights in a United Latvia (Par cilvēka tiesībām vienotā Latvijā, or PCTVL), to talks on forming a new government.

“Parties represented in the Saeima finally have to understand their responsiblity before the voters, have to stop bickering about unimportant things and must unite for common work,” New Era Chair Solvita Āboliņa said in a press release.

Likewise, the People’s Party and ZZS announced they are ready to work on forming a new government, but also without PCTVL.

Livonian is “critically endangered” and Latgalian’s status is called “unsafe” in the latest atlas of endangered languages compiled by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

UNESCO’s Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger, released Feb. 19 as an interactive online tool, reports about 2,500 languages have varying risks of extinction. About 6,700 languages are spoken around the world, according to a UNESCO press release.

In Latvia, Livonian is listed as having just one native speaker with full competence, although numerous individuals study it as a second language. Latgalian, spoken in the Latgale region of eastern Latvia, has about 150,000 speakers.

Livonian was close to extinction already in the 1980s, Valdis Muktupāvels, head of the University of Latvia’s Centre of Letonics, told Latvians Online in an e-mail.

“At present there are efforts to revitalize the Livonian language,” he said. Besides being spoken in a number of families, there are a Livonian newspaper, poets and writers who use Livonian, and music with Livonian lyrics.

Latgalian is in much better shape, Muktupāvels said.

“The Latgalian literary language is clearly defined with its own grammar, lexicon and language norms,” he said. Noteworthy is the number of Latgalian newspapers, magazine, yearbooks, and works of poetry and prose. It is also important that Latgalian dominates in the Catholic church. Discussions also have begun to give Latgalian official status, Muktupāvels said.

The UNESCO atlas also notes Krevin as a language once spoken in the Semigallia region near Bauska, but which now is extinct. According to an online version of The Red Book of the Peoples of the Russian Empire, Krevin was a dialect of the Votic language, which is related to Estonian.

“The death of a language leads to the disappearance of many forms of intangible cultural heritage,” UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura said in the press release, “especially the invaluable heritage of traditions and oral expressions of the community that spoke it—from poems and legends to proverbs and jokes. The loss of languages is also detrimental to humanity’s grasp of biodiversity, as they transmit much knowledge about the nature and the universe.”

The atlas groups the endangered languages in one of five risk levels: unsafe, definitely endangered, severely endangered, critically endangered and extinct.

In Estonia, the new atlas reports Võro-Seto as “definitely endangered.” About 50,000 speakers of the language are found in the southeast of Estonia and in the Pskov province of Russia.

In Lithuania, the Karaim language is listed as “severely endangered.” It is spoken by about 50 individuals in the Trakai region. Another six people use the language in Ukraine.

Previous editions of the language atlas were published in 1996 and 2001. A printed version of the 2009 atlas is due out in March, according to UNESCO. The online version may be viewed at www.unesco.org.