God speed Valdis Dombrovskis!

Today Valdis Dombrovskis became the fifteenth Prime Minister of Latvia, since this Baltic State regained its independence eighteen years ago. Happy to learn that Valdis Dombrovskis represents the same generation I do, and quite ominously he has become not only the youngest prime minister in Latvia, but he is also the youngest leader in the EU today. His new cabinet was approved with 67 YEA votes, and 21 NAY´s came from the majority russophone Harmony Centre and Human Rights parties in a hundred member parliament.

Photo: R.Olins/Apollo

In normal circumstances people should be celebrating but not this time in Latvia. Parliamentary majority accepted the new Corruption Bureau Chief Mr. Normunds Vilnitis, the politicized state enterprises councils were liquidated, and also ``the anti-Mafia`` law was finally passed in the parliament! However, those amendments were long overdue in this corruption ridden country. The former government led the country to the verge of the bankruptcy, and now Valdis Dombrovskis must lead the country out of the malaise together with former ``adversaries``. The task of the new PM is not going to be easy, because he would have to be constantly guarding his back from his own coalition members ...

Photo: Kristians Putnins

Decisions of the parliament to pass the long mulled laws and appoint Mr Vilnitis as the new Anti Corruption warrior are encouraging, thus, God speed Valdis Dombrovskis with your challenging work in overhauling the antiquated state machinery! Glad to realize, that also Gatis Šļūka in his cartoons has the same contemplations:)

Text in Latvian: [The question] What should we do? it simply does not operate...[an answer] We would reinstall it!

P.S. Here is my interview to ERR presented on the web thanks to the Päevaleht Online