RIGA – Latvia’s four-party ruling coalition collapsed yesterday, prompting the president to call for talks to forge a new government to tackle a deepening economic crisis.
The collapse, which makes Latvia’s the second European government to succumb to the financial crisis, adds to the economic problems of the small Baltic state, which last year had to take a €7.5 billion IMF-led rescue loan last year.
Political and social tensions exploded in rioting in January, though there has been little sign since of a repeat.
“On Monday I will start consultations with all the political parties in parliament . . . on the formation of a new government,” President Valdis Zatlers told reporters after accepting the resignation of Ivars Godmanis, prime minister since December 2007.
The country of 2.3 million people, a European Union and Nato member since 2004, has a history of revolving-door governments, with the same parties swapping in and out of power.
The largest ruling parties, the People’s Party and the Union of Greens and Farmers, said they had lost confidence in Mr Godmanis, who is from another party. One opposition party said the move was aimed at eventually giving the People’s Party a tighter grip on power, and possibly the prime minister’s job. – (Reuters)