More protection for women from violence, a law on equality for homosexual couples – both could soon be launched in Latvia. A new government is being formed in Riga these weeks after the previous center-right coalition collapsed. This could mean a progressive boost for the country.
Only in the spring did Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš criticize his coalition partners because they again did not agree to the ratification of the Istanbul Convention on the Protection of Women in Parliament. The reason for the new vote was the murder of a woman who had been threatened and pursued by her ex-partner for months. Several police officers are currently being investigated for inaction.
In May, Kariņš was still patient, saying he hoped for a change of heart within the next four years. The 58-year-old has been trying to get the convention ratified since 2019. It was then that he became Prime Minister of Latvia for the first time. In last fall’s election, his Neue Unity party came out on top with just under 19 percent of the vote.
The conservatives fear their country could become “more cosmopolitan”.
But after months of quarrels in his government, Kariņš announced his resignation a week ago. The new unit wants to look for new, more liberal coalition partners. Social Affairs Minister Evika Siliņa, who, according to the New Unit, should also become Prime Minister, will take over the negotiations.
The current coalition partners of Neue Unity would do “everything to slow down momentum,” said Kariņš. The coalition just doesn’t work together. The break had been indicated since the presidential election on May 31 at the latest. The coalition could not agree on a candidate. Kariņš sent his fellow party member and Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkēvičs into the running. These two opposition parties owe his election victory – the prime minister’s coalition partners, on the other hand, refused to vote. Probably also because Rinkēvičs publicly acknowledged his homosexuality years ago. Something like this still causes a stir in the country, which has not even known registered partnerships so far.
Among President Rinkēvičs’ supporters was the party “The Progressives”, who could now enter the government. Kariņš has long wanted to work with this party, which is primarily elected by young people.
Before the test: the Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs has to show in the consultations with the parties that he is acting independently.
(Photo: Andrzej Iwanczuk/IMAGO/NurPhoto)
The right-wing conservative National Alliance party sees the progressives, with their social-democratic-green orientation, as a threat to Latvia. With them in government, politics will “become more cosmopolitan and hostile to everything that has to do with traditional values and the construction of a Latvian Latvia,” said party leader Raivis Dzintars at the weekend. He warns of “ultra-liberal tendencies”, more immigration and speaks of pro-Kremlin positions.
This is about the country’s strong Russian-speaking minority, which makes up about a quarter of the population. In Riga in particular, a lot of Russian can be heard, more than a third of the capital city dwellers name Russian as their mother tongue.
But one of the main concerns of the right-wing conservatives has long been decided: the conversion of the entire school curriculum to Latvian. In addition, Russian is to gradually disappear as a school subject. Already some schools are announcing problems that there will be a shortage of teachers who can teach their subjects in impeccable Latvian.
Currently, members of the Russian-speaking minority who do not have a Latvian passport are required to take language tests. If they fail, they face expulsion from the country. Only at the weekend did public television report that twelve teachers who had failed the Latvian test had resigned from a school in the coastal town of Liepāja.
The political scientist Iveta Kažoka from the Riga think tank Providus takes a less dramatic view. First of all, she says on the phone, there is a shortage of students. Many schools would have to close, “so it would be surprising if we suddenly had too few teachers”. More importantly, the potential new coalition partners proposed a social solution that would prevent the radical expulsion of anyone who failed the Latvian language exam.
The expert hopes for new political energy and more pragmatism
Kažoka is confident about the new government. “There will be a new energy, progress can finally be made.” Not only on the eternal issue of the Istanbul Convention, but above all on socio-political issues. In addition, the country, like so many others, needs skilled workers from abroad. Since gaining independence from the Soviet Union, Latvia has lost around a million inhabitants to emigration; fewer than two million people live in the country today. In addition, the birth rate is low. But the right-wing conservatives have so far slowed down on the issue of immigration law, says Kažoka. She expects “more pragmatism” from the new government on many issues.
For the new Latvian president, who until recently was a member of the government himself, the crisis is his first major test. He has to show that he acts independently. Because now it is his turn, he will gradually receive representatives of all parties for consultations – on Monday he already spoke to Social Affairs Minister Evika Siliņa from the New Unit and representatives of the conservative Union of Greens and Farmers. The two want to remain government partners. Siliņa explained that she wanted a government that represented as many voters as possible – which speaks in favor of a larger coalition of possibly four parties instead of the previous three.
President Edgars Rinkēvičs made a clear demand: by 2030, Latvia must have reached the average level of prosperity in the EU.