Latvian Political Monitor

Unfortunately, the Prime Minister's actions are no different from JV governments: - shifting everything to law enforcement authorities (this time to the Constitutional Court) - saying that 'the government is not an investigative body' - claiming that nothing can be done because it is all in the past. The Cabinet of Ministers could have recognized the decisions as unlawful. https://t.co/j7Zg71y6dY

@UldisVarnevichs @Brivibas36 Previous government ministers had reason to believe that the documents prepared by @Zemkopibas_min contained truthful info. @AndrisKulbergs is aware that the information was distorted. There is a difference. The initiated criminal process will reveal more about the persons involved.

Previous governments were misled by the documents submitted by @Zemkopibas_min. Being informed of this, the prime minister continues to protect the illegal decision. That is the difference. https://t.co/Jlijq1DYKQ

@ineselibina Shall we open the topic about the botch and the ex-Minister's responsibility in these Unity Evika Siliņa government decisions, your opinions and their quality in the context of this scandal? About the received inheritance, its causes and consequences that the new @AndrisKulbergs government now has to deal with? https://t.co/o8i4dR2Kxi

No surprises - since the moment Kulbergs entrusted ZZS to lead the Ministry of Agriculture, it was clear that the cover-up of the scandal would continue. As recently as February, the Prime Minister clearly called this scandal corruption. https://t.co/XMEWwNSh6U

@guntarsv Politics is realized not only in the amount of money allocated. And currently, after three budgets have been adopted, I see that the only implementer of policy in budget adoption is the Ministry of Finance. The process is designed so that politicians have as little opportunity as possible to meaningfully decide.

Today Kulbergs' government has the opportunity to decide on recovering 50 million from companies that lobbied for illegal support. Let's see whether AS, NA and, of course, JV will yield to ZZS pressure to do nothing. Or will we continue to hear about NGO 'parasites'? https://t.co/xdSh1Et8ks

@guntarsv The goal is to ensure predictable funding for the sports sector similar to VKKF. The Ministry of Finance has never liked a solution that ties taxes to specific expenditures. That reduces the Ministry of Finance's flexibility - not the Saeima's. The theses you are replaying here are the ones I have been hearing for 4 years.

@guntarsv As a ministerial advisor, it is no longer appropriate for you to call everyone you disagree with communists. It may happen that at some point the finance minister will need the support of the Pro faction. But everyone knows well that contrary to your Twitter courage, in daily ministry work you are submissive to everything.

An extremely important request from the Prosecutor General's Office to the government - to revoke decisions on support for wood processing companies. That is about 50 million that must be returned to LVM. How will Kulbergs' government act? In the interest of the public or narrow interests? https://t.co/74dTN7beDj

@TasPatsAtis @GirtsRungainis In that discussion there was also @UldisBikis, whose company Latvijas Finieris is an excellent example that Latvian wood receives high added value when exported. Happy about their work!

The government has taken the bull by the horns to introduce 'order'. As it turns out, that bull is non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and science. A little more than a month has passed since the change of responsibility areas in the Saeima and the Cabinet of Ministers. A clear hand and direction is emerging in how the United List (AS), the National Alliance (NA) and the Union of Greens and Farmers (ZZS) see the development of the state. In one word — division. Cheap, populist moves are being used to pit one part of society against another. There will be no compromises that promote social cohesion, but pure populism and a search for the guilty. It turns out that non-governmental organisations, which do their work voluntarily and whose representatives receive compensation so they can occasionally leave their main job and go to NGO meetings, are now to blame for the country's backwardness. Prime Minister Kulbergs has already boasted that he is not paid for attending meetings. What a thing to be proud of! As if a politician's job were not to attend meetings and defend his opinion, and the Prime Minister's duty — to lead such meetings. The populists have not forgotten science either, and will now try to teach university faculty how and about what to write research. About cows is allowed, about people — not allowed. It is not allowed because politicians do not want to understand what these studies are even about. Instead of waiting for results, letting the scientific community evaluate them and then discussing, the populists latch onto titles containing foreign words. 'I don't understand — therefore a bad thing,' is their logic. These actions clearly show where AS, NA and ZZS plan to lead Latvia if they retain power after the Saeima elections — toward populist conservatism, where politicians have no real work for the good of the state, but instead engage in an ever-new search for enemies.

❗️ Civil society and non-governmental organizations are one of the cornerstones of democracy. We remind Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs that in point 51 of the government declaration, the government has committed to strengthening support for civil society. Let's follow along to ensure this commitment is also implemented in practice.