LATVIA: With Latvia on the verge of joining the EU and NATO, its president and new prime minister face a tough job, reports Daniel McLaughlin in Riga.
The earnest eco-warrior and the elegant psychology professor make an odd political couple as Latvia's prime minister and president.
On the recommendation of President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, Latvia's parliament approved Mr Indulis Emsis as Europe's first Green Party premier this week, breaking an embarrassing political impasse in the weeks before the country enters NATO and the European Union.
The painful talks that gave birth to Mr Emsis' minority government were symptomatic of the tumultuous political climate in Latvia, where 10 governments have collapsed in the 13 years since independence was regained from Moscow.
Mr Emsis (52), bespectacled and with a thick moustache, is a quiet consolidator and is charged with soothing a fractious parliament and easing Latvia through the next few historic months.
Ms Vike-Freiberga (66) is the eloquent, international face of her nation. She exudes a calm assurance that is welcome to Latvia's 2.3 million people, who could easily be dismayed by the rapid turnover of governments.
Latvia is still growing into a mature democracy, the former Montreal University lecturer said. Rather than develop a stable political culture, Latvia had spent a decade trying to escape the shadow of Soviet domination, a shadow that will finally dissolve with entry into NATO next month and the EU in May.
At home and abroad, she is widely praised for getting Latvia this far, and for doing so in style.
One diplomat in the Latvian capital, Riga, noted her knack of "charming the socks off middle-aged politicians". Another said she was solely responsible for US President George W. Bush knowing where the Baltic nation was.
For her part, the second World War refugee shows no false modesty about her achievements in moving from political novice to old hand in just six years.
"I think I've done a good job, frankly," she told The Irish Times in old Riga's presidential palace.
"I had a decision to make: would I take early retirement, work on my research, grow my African violets and have a nice, quiet life and travel, or have this exciting life as president of a country in absolute transition."
She was the head of a think-tank in Riga when, frustrated by deadlock in talks over a new president, a group of intellectuals nominated her as a compromise candidate in a typically divisive Latvian leadership contest.
She scraped through the 1999 vote, parliament approving her with only 53 of 100 votes. In the 2003 poll, she had no opponents and took 88 of 96 votes cast. "There was a lot to be done . . . so I had the privilege as president of helping Latvia achieve goals that are unique in our history," she said.
Ms Vike-Freiberga is well placed to chart the tumultuous changes in Latvia's fortunes.
Born in 1937, her parents fled abroad as war engulfed Europe, and first Soviet, then Nazi, then Soviet troops again occupied Latvia and subjected its people to terror and deportation to distant labour camps.
She eventually settled in Canada before returning to her homeland in 1998.
At the 2002 NATO summit in Prague, she stunned assembled leaders with an impassioned, off-the-cuff speech about the misery of Moscow's rule and received an invitation to the White House shortly afterwards.
She spoke with Mr Bush for almost an hour and her admirers say she can charm an audience in fluent Latvian, English, Spanish, French or German.
Few doubt her political savvy or conviction, though, and she is quick to criticise Mr Einar Repse's decision to resign as premier just months before NATO and EU entry.
"Heaven only knows" what motivated the timing of it, she said. "If he had managed to do the job for 15 months I think he could have lasted another two, frankly." She said she nominated Green Party deputy Mr Indulis Emsis - whom parliament approved as prime minister on Tuesday - because he was not involved in the squabbles that scuttled the last government.
"I was looking for someone with no preconceived ideas or objections or ideas of exclusion... Mr Emsis's party remained neutral and he is a sensible man."
Speaking after his nomination by Ms Vike-Freiberga, the diffident Mr Emsis told The Irish Times that he would face a constant juggling act to keep his government together and push its plans through parliament.
Mr Emsis, who is renowned for his work protecting Latvia's coastline and historic castles, said his cabinet could evolve into a majority government capable of more than just guiding Latvia smoothly through EU and NATO entry.
As prime minister, Mr Emsis will be the EU's most senior Green and he said his appointment was a chance to show the continent what an ecologist could do in power.
"We need to find a compromise between sustainable development and the environment - that's what the world is looking for with things like the Kyoto Protocol. And maybe we can be a model to show how to unite those aims."
Many people in Latvia doubt he has the political clout or force of personality to keep his government together, and fear the country could be plunged back into uncertainty before on the eve of EU and NATO accession.
But Mr Emsis draws confidence from his a formidable ally in the presidential palace.
"The president is very understanding and our visions of Latvia's future are very similar," he said. "We will do our best to stop this political crisis becoming a national crisis."