Final "pearls" of the hopefully outgoing political "elite" in Latvia

There was an article in Helsingin Sanomat before, and in Der Zeit last month where the same picture was used, and making the "nothing special" slogan a real Latvian trademark.

© ILMARS ZNOTINS/AFP/Getty

It would have been rather encouraging news unless it was not uttered by the lacklustre former minister of finance. Former banker considered that "nothing special"could be used as a new trademark for advertising Latvia internationally. While such a proposal created some laughing in neighboring Estonia, I somehow believe that to come out with negative connotations for branding countries cannot really bring anything positive out. While there were numerous warning signs about the problems mounting in Латвия, the former government continued to live in their power bubble.

Instead to assess how come Latvian politicians were able to not to listen to numerous warning signs, announce orderly and early elections, and to continue from the clean sleet onwards, there is absolute stillness from the Riga Castle so far. I wish all the courage to the new government, but amidst their tasks in overhauling the outdated Latvian administrative machinery the president has probably forgotten that the early elections are primarily needed for returning legitimacy into democratic regime among the Latvian citizenry! Whether the president still keeps this option open we should see on March 32, 2009, as it has become customary to joke in Latvia lately.

In the meantime the Prime Minister Dombrovskis is forced to acknowledge that Latvian government would probably have to borrow additional 1 billion from international creditors in order to be on the safe side before the harsh autumn. In the same time the so-called "public relations engineers" are speculating that journalist are among those culprits to be blamed for Latvia finding itself in the sorry state of economy and social turmoil today. The same so-called "public relations engineers" somehow seem to forget that the former toothless and complacent government [who's representatives still sit in the parliament and government] is directly responsible for bringing Latvia at the verge of bankruptcy, and most of economics and business experts acknowledged it in their interview.

As if there would not be enough of bad news the former PM Šķēle came out with bombastic opinion yesterday. In his interview to the Latvian TV evening news (objectivity of the public TV must be questioned if thus many former politicians appear disproportionately often on air and give their reckless remarks) former PM somehow confirmed long circling rumours about changing his own mortgage from euros into Latvian lats. He opined that Latvian currency could be devalued and created quite an uproar in the Latvian Internet forums.

Also, former PM had an opinion that the Presidential deadline of March 31 and possible initiation of referendum process calling for early elections would be shortsighted, and detrimental to the very existence of the Republic of Latvia ["Savukārt uz jautājumu par to, vai Valsts prezidentam būtu jārosina Saeimas atlaišana pēc 31.marta, jo daļa prezidenta uzdevumu nav izpildīti, A.Šķēle atbildēja: "Tā būtu absolūta tuvredzība. Tā būtu Latvijas valsts iznīcināšana."]. Indeed, the early elections would be detrimental to the Latvia Ltd. and one of its architects, but most of the citizenry would sigh in relief when such law transgressing parties as People's Party and Latvia First/Latvian Way would cease to exists and would find themselves in the waste bin of history.