RIGA – Latvians will vote in a referendum on dissolving parliament after a corruption row prompted the president to seek dissolution with the likelihood of new elections.
In an emotional speech on Saturday, President Valdis Zatlers said he wanted to dissolve parliament after it refused last week to allow prosecutors to search properties belonging to a prominent businessman and politician in a corruption probe.
Under the constitution a referendum has to be held to confirm that decision, and the electoral commission has set the date for July 23rd.
Pollsters say trust in parliament is low, and voters will probably back a dissolution, meaning a new parliamentary election, probably in September – only 11 months after the last one.
The small Baltic state is just emerging from a recession which started in 2009 and which was the deepest in the European Union, slashing output by almost 20 per cent and foreshadowing the later difficulties of Greece, Portugal and Ireland.
It took an international bailout at the end of 2008 worth €7.5 billion euros to get the Latvian economy back on its feet. It has used €4.4 billion of the loan and says it still has plenty of reserves.
President Zatlers has attacked parliament’s “political scheming and lies” and said he wanted to rein in powerful local businessmen, known as oligarchs.
Ainars Slesers, whose immunity from a house search parliament protected last week, denies any wrongdoing and accused Mr Zatlers of wanting to take over power, likening him to Latvia’s 1930s dictator, Karlis Ulmanis.
The anti-corruption police meanwhile vowed to pursue a case which prompted the request to search Mr Slesers’s properties. – (Reuters)
