The number of persons from Latvia earning permanent resident status in Canada increased in 2009, but remains significantly lower than the figure recorded a decade ago, according to government statistics.

A total of 86 persons from Latvia became permanent residents of Canada last year, up from 66 in 2008, according to data compiled by Citizenship and Immigration Canada and released in September.

Under Canadian law, permanent residents must live in the country for at least two years within a five-year period. Otherwise, they risk losing their status. While permanent residents share many of the same rights as Canadian citizens, they may not vote in elections.

Ten years ago, 230 persons from Latvia became permanent residents, increasing to 286 in 2001.

The number steadily declined through 2006, when just 73 new permanent residents were recorded. However, the number jumped to 113 in 2007.

In the past decade, a total of 1,491 persons from Latvia have become permanent residents of Canada, according to the data. That is more than from Lithuania, which contributed 1,355 new permanent residents during the same period, or Estonia, with contributed just 403.

Last year, more than 250,000 persons from around the world became new permanent residents of Canada. China, the Philippines and India are the top three source countries, according to the data.

For the second year in a row, Latvia has slipped in an index that ranks countries according to perceptions of how corrupt they are.

Latvia earned a score of 4.3 and dropped to a ranking of 59th in the 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index released Oct. 26 by the Berlin-based Transparency International. Last year, Latvia received a score of 4.5 and ranked 56th.

Two years ago, Latvia scored 5.0, its highest result since 1998 when the country was first included in the index.

Transparency International, which describes itself as a global civil society organization leading the fight against corruption, used various surveys to evaluate 178 countries for the 2010 survey.

Nearly three-fourths of the countries in this year’s index scored below five, on a scale from zero (perceived to be highly corrupt) to 10 (perceived to have a low level of corruption).

“These results signal that significantly greater efforts must go into strengthening governance across the globe,” Huguette Labelle, chair of Transparency International, said in a press release announcing the 2010 results. “With the livelihoods of so many at stake, governments’ commitments to anti-corruption, transparency and accountability must speak through their actions. Good governance is an essential part of the solution to the global policy challenges governments face today.”

In Latvia, the anti-corruption organization Delna—an affiliate of Transparency International—called on the government to spend more resources to battle the problem. The economic crisis in the country has fed corruption, the organization noted in a press release.

Among European Union members, Latvia ranks 25th, ahead of Slovakia, Italy, Romania, Bulgaria and last-place Greece.

In the global index, Estonia earned a score of 6.5, down from the 6.6 recorded last year. Nonetheless, Estonia saw its ranking rise one spot to 26th.

Lithuania earned 5.0, up from the 4.9 it received last year. Lithuania’s ranking rose to 46th, up from 52nd last year.

First in the index are Denmark, New Zealand and Singapore, all with a score of 9.3. The United States, scoring 7.1, ranked 22nd. Russia, with a score of 2.1, ranked 154th. Ranked last is Somalia, with an index of 1.1.

In compiling the Corruption Perceptions Index, Transparency International used information from up to 13 different institutions, such as the World Economic Forum, Global Insight, Freedom House and the World Bank.

A nationalist political alliance will not be part of a new government for Latvia after all, leaders of the Vienotība (Unity) group have decided.

Just days after agreeing to include the nationalist alliance Visu Latvijai! – Tēvzemei un Brīvībai/LNNK (All for Latvia! – For Fatherland and Freedom/LNNK), the centrist Vienotība found itself backtracking after disagreement arose in its ranks about the makeup of the new government.

In an Oct. 22 press conference, Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis said that the nationalists and the center-right Zaļo un Zemnieku savienība (Union of Greens and Farmers, or ZZS) would join his Vienotība in the new government. The nationalists even were promised the justice minister’s portfolio. All that remained was for the three political forces to agree on how the rest of the ministerial portfolios would be allocated and for President Valdis Zatlers to formally invite Dombrovskis to form the new government.

However, on Oct. 25 one of the three parties that make up Vienotība, Sabiedrība citai politikai (Association for a Different Politics, or SCP), vetoed the notion of giving the nationalists a voice in the government.

That will leave just Vienotība and ZZS to form the new government. With 55 seats in the new Saeima, the two-party coalition government would still have a majority, but significantly thinner than the 63 seats it would have had with the nationalists in tow.

The nationalists at first were not going to be part of the government, but after agreeing to subsume their political agenda to that of the coalition government, were invited to join Vienotība and ZZS.

SCP leader Artis Pabriks labeled the nationalists as “monopolists of patriotism” who are opposed to persons who are not ethnic Latvians, according to media reports.

Meanwhile, Visu Latvijai! finds itself in a battle over its public image. After suggestions that the party had taken money from the Chechen community in Latvia, Visu Latvijai! leaders turned to the prosecutor general’s office and the Security Police to help determine who is behind the rumors, according to an Oct. 22 posting on the party’s website.

Earlier plans to bring the center-left and pro-Russian Saskaņas Centrs (Harmony Centre) into the government also collapsed. Saskaņas Centrs in the Oct. 2 Saeima electon won control of 29 seats in the new parliament.