Thursday, November 15, 2007

Presidential games in Latvia

All is quiet in Latvia and most news start coming from Frankfurt these days. In www.iht.com there was an article about Latvian financial situation and it is widely believed that the ECB is willing to see the Bank of Latvia decrease the value of the Latvian currency. Danske Bank still continues to talk about the devaluation of lat and weakness of the Latvian economy is the major reason for that. In the meantime Latvian political nomenclature still carries on as before.

The president of Latvia had an interesting announcement today. Valdis Zatlers reprimanded the head of Latvian intelligence agency Mr Kazocins to explain why there are unqualified members of the presidential gueard. The reprimand came after the police today announced that the former head of presidential guard Mr Edgars Gulbis is felon and crook. Even though Mr Gulbis would be faking his behaviour his decrepet looks and public pronouncements of his lawyer Mr Pleps confirm, that police tortured him and forced him to digest drug substances.

The fact that president quickly follows in the footsteps of the police make me worried. It would take a long judiscial discussion to decide what really happened on the bridge of Daugava river. When Mr Gulbis mysteriously fell out of the police car right in to the autumny river (he was saved by a sheer accident of fishermen boat being next to him while he plunged into the river) nobody could really know, and we stil do not know what happened.

BUT if the president openly questions the head of Latvian secret service Mr Kazocins (who replaced shabby and Mr Lembergs &Co payrolled Mr Lainis Kamaldins) PRIOR court session, then it makes me REALLY WORRIED about impartial stance of the president zatlers. He was elected under shabby circumstances and more secretive his governance style becomes now (he openly refused to dislose the bill of refurbishing the presidential residency today). Shall see, what else his presidency would bring, because it seems that ideals of western and liberal democratic ideals are foreign to him, unfortunately...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Remember, Zatlers was already seen as an ethically-compromised doctor before he got to Rigas Pils. What made anyone think he would instantly inherit a dose of ethics once he took Vaira's sash? Just like The Knight didn't immediately speak 8 languages a la Lennart.

The time that Latvia needs a strong, principled leader of unquestionable ethics, it ends up with a quack. This, my friend, is why Latvia is up the Dvina these days...