More presidential candidates

Latvia First Party/Latvian Way coalition has nominated the deputy speaker of the Latvian parliament, Karina Petersone (born 1954) as its presidential candidate. Petersone has been in Latvian politics for 16 years but not in high-profile positions. She started in early 1990s as an aide to Anatolijs Gorbunovs, then-speaker of the parliament and then gradually moved into more significant roles, serving as the minister of culture from 1998 to 2002 and the deputy speaker of the parliament from 2006 to now. She has a reputation of a careful politician capable of compromises and political manuevring but hardly ever takes a leading role on important questions.

Her main negative is the lack of foreign policy experience. Latvian presidents usually have a significant foreign policy role and the outgoing president, Vaira Vike-Freiberga was very good at that. Petersone will have to learn foreign policy on the spot, if she is elected. She might be able to do that, but I would prefer someone who already has experience.

Social Democrats have nominated Dainis Ivans (born 1955), a prominent independence activist of late 1980s/early 1990s. Since Social Democrats have no seats in the current Latvian parliament, it is unlikely that Ivans will become the president. I interpret his nomination as Social Democrats trying to gain positive publicity by nominating a popular candidate.

Ivans started his political career as a journalist and enviromental activist, opposing the construction of more dams on Daugava river in late 1980s. This brought together enviromentalists who opposed the destruction of landscapes and nationalists who were opposed to the possible influx of a large number of ethnically Russian construction workers. The construction project was shelved and Ivans would go on to become the leader of Latvian Popular Front, the pro-Latvian independence political coalition.

He was outstanding as a protest figure but did not fare so well after Popular Front winning the election and become the ruling party. Protesting things and making positive contributions from a position of power requires different sets of skills and I suspect Ivans had skills for the first but not the second. I've also read multiple rumours of his personal life improprieties in Latvian tabloid press. Given those reasons, I would prefer not to see Ivans as the president.

On a second thought, his rhetorical skills may be good for promoting Latvian causes abroad. Still, I prefer almost any other candidate.

Still waiting for candidates from Union of Farmers and Greens and Fatherland and Freedom.

Latvian presidential candidates, update 2

With so many candidates from the previous shortlist no longer running, who is on the candidate list now? Parties in the parliament have nominated some previously unknown candidates.

Tautas Partija (People's Party) has nominated Maris Riekstins (born 1963) who is currently the Chief of Staff of Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis.

Foreign policy experience? Check. Riekstins was the secretary of the state (the highest civil service position) in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for 11 years and then he was the Latvian embassador to US for two years.

Undesirably close links to powerful Latvians with a lot of money? Unclear. Latvian-language blogger Maris Zanders says that Riekstins' candidacy was pushed through by Andris Skele, the multimillionaire businessman who founded People's Party but no longer has an official position there. I'm not privy to inner workings of People's Party but let's have a look at Riekstins' resume... He became the secretary of state for MFA in 1993, years before Skele became influential in Latvian politics and he lasted in that position for 11 years, most of which the government was not run by the People's Party. Does not look like a protege of Skele at all... And he joined People's Party just a few months ago.

Political views? Unknown, since he has been a civil servant and a diplomat, rather than a politician.

Overall? Not a well-known figure but I don't see anything that obviously makes him a bad candidate.

Latvian presidency candidates: update 1

Eight months ago, I wrote about a supposed shortlist of seven candidates for the Latvian presidency that was behind discussed behind the scenes. With one month left until the election, there is not much left of that shortlist:

• Sandra Kalniete: New Era Party is fully behind her. The bad news is that nobody else in the Latvian parliament likes New Era Party. Unless our current president dissolves the parliament between now and the election (given the confrontation between the president and the parliament over last few months, this is clearly a possibility) and there is a new parliament electing the next president, Kalniete is not going to win.
• Andris Piebalgs: claims that he is not running. Prefers to stay in European Commision instead.
• Ojars Kalnins: still on the list but is rumored to be closer to the end of it. His supposed disadvantages: fatigue with Latvians from abroad being in key decisionmaking positions and he might be easy to manipulate for political parties. Hmmm... I don't want a president who is manipulated by others, but wouldn't that actually increase his chances with parties in parliament? After the recent confrontation with Vaira Vike-Freiberga, they might like it!
• Ivars Lacis: was offered a nomination by The Union of Farmers and Greens and he declined. One more candidate whom I liked is off the list.
• Artis Pabriks: declined, after an analysis of his chances to gain a majority support in the parliament. Expressed discontent with the lack of transparency in the election process. Why are all candidates whom I like running away from being the candidates??
• Janis Jurkans: I was very surprised by seeing his name on that shortlist eight months ago! I haven't heard about him running again...
• Zaneta Ozolina: claims that she is not running and has not even been offered to run by any of the parties. I hope so. Eight months ago, she was an unknown. Over the last months, she has been more actively speaking in public and I don't see enough competency in her speeches. (The main gain from Latvia being in EU is being able to participiate in decision-making?? What?? Have we affected any significant EU decisions at all in the last three years??) Also, she was teaching "scientific communism" at a university during the Soviet era... former propaganda worker for the Soviet regime as a president is the last thing Latvia needs.

Riots in Estonia

One week late... this is my perspective on what happened in Estonia. In terms of facts, I don't have much to add to what Aleks and Justin wrote.

Why did this happen in Estonia and not Latvia? There are a few curious stories that I've read over the past months. The first was in Nedela (The Week), a Latvian newsmagazine, last December. A certain pro-Russia activist organization was planning to organize a "conference" in Riga on World War II and Latvian history. Given the organizers, the conference would have been a sequence of speeches proclaiming the positive role of Soviet Union, denying that Latvia was ever forced to join the Soviet Union, downplaying the extend of Stalinist crimes against humanity... They got a phone call from Russian embassy in Latvia asking them to cancel the conference.

The next story came in March. March 16 is a date when the Latvian legion of SS was founded in 1943 and it usually results in a number of marches and counter marches in Riga, by older veterans who were part of Latvian legion, by younger Latvian nationalists (a lot of them from quite dubious nationalist organizations) who want to honour the Latvian legion and by Russian groups who hate the legion and try to obstruct the march, proclaiming that "freedom of speech does not apply to Nazis". In past years, things have gotten quite confrontational, to the degree that Riga City Council deliberately scheduled repair work in the city centre in March 2006, to push the marchers away to more remote locations.

This year, there was a new twist! A few phone calls from Russian embassy to "anti-Nazi" groups asking not to get "too unruly" with their "counter-march" because Russia did not want to inflame tensions in Latvia. The organizers were hinted that, if they disobey the orders, they might run into some dificulty getting Russian vizas next time when they go to Russia.

If Moscow wanted to stir up tensions in Latvia, they could easily find an excuse... but they seem to be working in the opposite direction! Why are they interested in confrontation in Estonia but not Latvia? I wish I could understand the logic of Moscow puppetmasters...

So many things to write about....

My blog has been dormant since November. Back then, the parliamentary election was just over, Latvia had a new government and I thought it was going to be an uneventful time there... So, I stopped writing and focused on my work and other pursuits.

I was wrong! The last few months in Latvian politics have been among the most intense in the recent history. The president Vaira Vike-Freiberga confronting the parliament and initiating a referendum via Article 72 of Latvian constitution, which has never been used in that way (in 27 years that Latvia has been a democracy with the present constitution). One of 10 richest people (and, formerly, a kingmaker of Latvian politics), Aivars Lembergs, is behind the bars, accused in money laundering. Juris Hlevickis, who tried to buy his way towards becoming mayor of resort city Jurmala and came one vote short, is convicted. And, just a few days ago, our neighbor Estonia erupted in riots of the scale it has not seen for at least a decade...

Over the next days, I'll cover some of those events. First, later tonight or tomorrow, on riots in Estonia. Then, the upcoming presidential election and corruption scandals. On some of those, I might write two posts. One, describing the conventional wisdom dominating the Latvian media. And, then, the second, with the facts that don't fit together with the conventional wisdom.

Republic of Latvia - 88

From the song we were singing on this Independence Day in the Latvian Centre in Toronto:

Tev muzam dzivot, Latvija,
Ka saulei, kas mirdz debess klaja!
Tu - jauna zvaigzne zvaigznaja,
Kas nule uzlekusi taja.

My amateurish translation:

You forever live, Latvia
As the sun shining in the sky!
You - a new star in the constellation
Who has just risen over there.

Preliminary election results

With 970 of 1006 precints reporting:
Tautas Partija 19.52%
Zaļo un Zemnieku savienība 16.81%
Jaunais laiks 16.12%
"Saskaņas Centrs" 14.10%
LPP/LC 8.53%
"Tēvzemei un Brīvībai"/LNNK 6.80%
PCTVL 5.85%
From region-by-region results and my Excel spreadsheet, here are the projected numbers of seats in the parliament:
Tautas Partija 23
Zaļo un Zemnieku savienība 18
Jaunais laiks 18
"Saskaņas Centrs" 18
LPP/LC 10
"Tēvzemei un Brīvībai"/LNNK 7
PCTVL 6
As usual, the region-by-region formula distorts the vote proportions a bit. The numbers are nearly final (98-100% vote counted) for all regions except Riga. Riga results may shift by a seat or two. The most likely possibility is Jaunais Laiks gaining one more seat, either from "Tēvzemei un Brīvībai"/LNNK or Saskanas Centrs.

The current TP+ZZS+LPP/LC coalition is currently at 51 seats (out of 100) and this total is unlikely to change. Will Kalvitis be the first prime minister (since 1990) who keeps his position after the election?

UPDATE (10:25pm): Diena has a different projection, with 1 more seat for ZZS and TB/LNNK and 2 less for Saskanas Centrs. I checked my calculations but did not find any mistake.

Meanwhile, the only uncounted votes left are from abroad (including mine!). The projected seat totals have not changed. The abroad votes are credited to Riga region and can still result in Jaunais Laiks gaining a seat there.

Final opinion poll

From Latvijas Fakti, polling conducted on October 2-4, change compared to the previous week:
Tautas Partija 13.7% (+1.1)
ZZS 12.4% (+0.1)
Jaunais Laiks 9.5% (+2.4)
PCTVL 9.4% (+0.8)
Saskanas Centrs 8.9% (+3.2)
LPP/LC 6.8% (+0.9)
TB/LNNK 5.1% (-0.7)
Social Democrats 3.9% (+0.4)

Social Democrats are almost exactly on the 5% borderline. (3.9% of all polled people corresponds to 5% of those who have chosen a party to vote for.)
Projected seats in the parliament:
Tautas Partija 20 (-2)
ZZS 18 (-3)
Jaunais Laiks 14 (+2)
PCTVL 13 (-2)
Saskanas Centrs 13 (+3)
LPP/LC 10 (unch.)
TB/LNNK 7 (-3)
Social Democrats 5 (+5)

Looks like four more years of divided parliament, with at least three different government coalitions in this time. As it has been since the independence.

Opinion piece in Monday's Diena

Monday's Diena newspaper had an opinion article by Peteris Strautins in which he expresses worries similar to my Saturday's post, but in much more outspoken form. The article is now in the subscription-only archive but here is a quote:

Ja finanšu tirgi neceretu, ka Latvija parskatama nakotne tomer pievienosies eiro, mes savu riskanto ekonomikas raditaju del jau sen butu piedzivojuši kapitala begšanu. Virkne Latvijas ekonomikas arejo indikatoru ir krietni sliktaki neka Austrumazijas valstis pirms 1997.gada lielas finanšu krizes. Krizes skartajas valstis tekoša konta deficits videji bija 5% no IK, ka jau teikts, Latvija tas patlaban ir 18%. Varbut psihologisko luzumu radis 20% robežas parsniegšana?

If financial markets did not hope that Latvia would join euro in foreseeable future, we would have experienced capital flight long ago, due to our risky economy. Several of Latvia's external economic indicators are much worse than in East Asian countries before the big financial crisis of 1997. In the affected countries, the current account deficit before the crisis was, on average, 5% of GDP. As I already said, it's now 18% in Latvia. Maybe, there will be a psychological breakpoint after the deficit exceeds 20%?

The world is not very interested

about next week's Latvian parliamentary election. Only 8 foreign journalists have been accredited by Central Election Committee so far.

Latvia's economy: good news and bad news

Some economic numbers. First, Latvian economy grew 12.4% in the first half of 2006 (compared to the first half of 2005). This makes Latvia one of fastest-growing economies in the world and, according to International Monetary Fund (IMF), Latvia no longer has the lowest income in the EU. Now, Poland is the last and Latvia is second to last.

The growing economy has generated more money for the Latvian government and the ongoing election campaign is full of promises to use this money to increase salaries, retirement benefits and to reduce taxes, so that everyone benefits.

The Bank of Latvia is, however, warning of "unwelcome macroeconomic imbalances". And today's "Diena" has two one-paragraph stories (hidden on page 3) which make me think that this warning is a major understatement. First, according to Bank of Latvia, the foreign debt of Latvia has reached 10.583 billion lats (about 21 billion US $). That's about 110% of Latvia's annual economic output (GDP). Most of the debt is owed by Latvian individuals and companies. Government debt is only 639 million, the remaining 9.956 billion are privately owed.

Second, Latvia keeps borrowing at an alarming rate. Latvia's current account deficit reached 17.9% of GDP in the 2nd quarter of 2006. That means that 17.9% of economic activity in Latvia was financed by money that is either borrowed or invested from abroad (mostly borrowed, I think). I am not an economist (my knowledge of economy is mainly due to reading Dienas Biznesss and other financial newspapers) but these numbers look scary to me. There is no way how foreign banks will keep lending money to Latvia at this rate. Bank of Latvia website has an article which compares the present Latvia to Czech Republic which had a three-year economic slowdown in late 1990s, after the current account deficit reaching 7% of GDP in 1997. Latvia's deficit is already much larger than that, which suggests that the consequences may be more severe as well. (Again, I am not an economist, this is mainly my numerical common sense considerations.)

I am trying to follow the ongoing crisis in Hungary, to see if there are any analogies. The Hungarian prime minister just admitted that he has been "lying about economy day and night for past two years" to get reelected and announced an unprecedented austerity program, with salary cuts and massive layoffs of government employees. I talked to a Hungarian colleague (who currently lives outside Hungary) yesterday. He was unhappy and told me about Socialist vs. Fidesz political dynamics of Hungary. I was, however, more interested in the causes of economic troubles rather than the current political crisis and he was not able to tell much about that. It is also difficult to find good sources about the Hungarian situation on the web. (Again, it's because I am more interested in the economic analysis, rather than pictures of street riots.)

My main question is: what does this all mean for Latvia? Edward Hugh, an economist and one of bloggers at the Fistful of Euros, comments: "Baltic states look to be problematic but not today and tomorrow". One can either be worried by the first part or consoled by the second part. I am more in the first category but I hope I am wrong...

Two new opinion polls

Latvijas Fakti poll from September 23 to 26 (the number in brackets is the change compared to last week):
Tautas Partija 12.6% (-0.7%)
ZZS 12.3% (+0.2%)
PCTVL 8.8% (-0.4%)
Jaunais Laiks 7.1% (-1.0%)
LPP/LC 5.9% (-0.4%)
TB/LNNK 5.8% (unch.)
Saskanas Centrs 5.7% (unch.)
Social Democrats 3.5% (+0.2%)

Projected seats in the parliament:
Tautas Partija 22 (unch.)
ZZS 21 (+1)
PCTVL 15 (unch.)
Jaunais Laiks 12 (-3)
LPP/LC 10 (unch.)
TB/LNNK 10 (+1)
Saskanas Centrs 10 (+1)

Jaunais Laiks decline is now completely confirmed. And a poll by the competing company, SKDS. (Unofficial numbers, leaked to media. Have nonsense allegations by Dzimtene had so much effect on polling companies?)
ZZS 14.8% (+3.6%)
Jaunais Laiks 9.5% (-2.5%)
Tautas Partija 9.5% (+0.6%)
PCTVL 8.1% (-1.2%)
TB/LNNK 5% (-1.0%)
Saskanas Centrs 3.8% (+1.3%)
Social Democrats 3.5% (-0.3%)
LPP/LC 3.1% (-0.4%)

Good news

During meeting with Vaira Vike-Freiberga, Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper said that Latvia is close to satisfying Canada's requirements for allowing Latvians to travel to Canada without a visa.

Excellent! My experience is that Canadian consulates are generally more reasonable than US consulates (this story is one example and I know others). Still, applications for Canadian visas are only processed in Warsaw (not Riga) and mailing a passport to Poland can be time-consuming. Hopefully, we will no longer have to do that in a few years. If only United States could follow Canada in this ....

UPDATE: Estonians are one step ahead. They can already travel to Canada without visa.

New Estonian president

Toomas Hendrik Ilves has been elected as the president of Estonia. He was born in Sweden, in a family of Estonian refugees who left Estonia, escaping from the Soviet regime. He then grew up in USA and returned to Estonia in early 1990s, after it regained independence.

Close to 10% of population of Baltic states became refugees in 1944 and 1945. My father's family, small farmers from Central Latvia, nearly left the country as well, but they changed their mind a few hours before boarding a ship for Sweden. Some of the former refugees and their children came back in 1990s and some of them are very influential in the local politics. All three of the current Baltic presidents (Ilves, Vaira Vike-Freiberga and Valdas Adamkus) are former refugees.

I expect Ilves will be a very good president for Estonia. In Estonian and Latvian political system, the president's main role is to represent the country abroad. (The domestic political power belongs to the prime minister.) After living abroad for 40 years, Ilves knows the world outside Estonia very well. And he did well as the minister of foreign affairs for Estonia in 1990s. During the last years, Vaira Vike-Freiberga was the most internationally active president in the Baltic states and the unofficial spokesperson for the region. In a few months, this role will likely pass to Ilves. (Of course, it depends on whom the Latvians elect as Vike-Freiberga's successor. But how many of our candidates can match Ilves?)

Estonia has a fairly unusual (read: bizarre) election system. First, the parliament votes. If a candidate gets a 2/3 supermajority in the parliament, he/she is elected. (That has never happened so far.) Otherwise, the election goes to the Electoral College, which is composed of all the members of parliament and one representative from each municipal government. (Yes, Tallinn (population 400,000) and Ruhnu (known in Latvian as Ronu sala, population less than 100) both have one representative each. As a result, Electoral College is completely controlled by rural Estonia.)

This system was put in place in early 1990s. I was told that it was designed to prevent a specific person, the ex-communist Arnold Ruutel, from winning the presidency. The designers of the system thought that Ruutel could win a majority in the parliament but not in the Electoral College. That was a miscalculation. In 2001, Ruutel won the Electoral College. (It's amusing to watch how those tricks with electoral system can backfire... Ruutel might have lost a simple majority vote in the parliament in 2001.)

The election went to the Electoral College this time, as well. For a while, Estonian media were trying to guess which members of College will vote which way. Both Ilves and Ruutel camps claimed they had a majority of the Electoral College on their side. At the end, Ilves won, 174-162.

September opinion poll

My previous post on August opinion poll attracted some interesting comments from a professional survey statistician. Briefly, 9.5% in an opinion poll which polls 1000 people corresponds to a confidence interval [7.7%, 11.3%]. As a result, 1.3% change in Jaunais Laiks rating (from 10.8% in July to 9.5% in August) is not statistically significant to make any conclusions, although 2.2% drop from June to August might have been significant enough.

Meanwhile, Latvijas Fakti have released their September poll. Jaunais Laiks has dropped a little bit more, which confirms that the drop in August poll was not a statistical error. The numbers are:
Tautas Partija 13.3% (+3.5%)
ZZS 12.1% (+0.6%)
PCTVL 9.2% (-1.2%)
Jaunais Laiks 9.2% (-0.3%)
LPP/LC 6.3% (+1.2%)
TB/LNNK 5.8% (-0.8%)
Saskanas Centrs 5.7% (+1.0%)
Social Democrats 3.3% (-0.5%)

Projected seats in the parliament:
Tautas Partija 22 (+6)
ZZS 20 (+1)
PCTVL 15 (-2)
Jaunais Laiks 15 (unchanged)
LPP/LC 10 (+2)
TB/LNNK 9 (-2)
Saskanas Centrs 9 (+1)
Social Democrats 0 (-6)

The change is compared to August poll.

For the first time, the current minority government (TP+ZZS+LPP/LC) is projected to win more than a half of seats (52 out of 100), contrary to the Eastern European trend of voting out the government at every election. But I still think that "let's vote this corrupt government out" mood is going to prevail, once again. But who is going to benefit from it? Jaunais Laiks is no longer the anti-corruption outsider party and Social Democrats have their share of scandals from 2001-2005 Riga city government. Senior Citizen Party? They are still at 1.4% in the opinion poll but who knows...

It's official:Vaira Vike-Freiberga is running for UN Secretary General

Yesterday, the three Baltic nations nominated Vaira Vike-Freiberga for the UN Secretary General. She has been discussed as a candidate since at least March. Now, it's official. The biggest problem for her might be Russia's veto power. Russian media have already characterized Vike-Freiberga as "completely unacceptable" to Russia (because of her outspoken advocacy of Latvian interests, which are often in conflict with what Russia wants).

Latvian presidency candidates

No later than in June 2007, Latvia will elect its new president. The constitution does not allow our current president, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, to run for another term and, no matter how much Latvians value Vike-Freiberga, we will not change the constitution for her. Today, New Era party announced Sandra Kalniete as its candidate for the next president. Officially, she is the first candidate.

Unofficially, 6-7 other candidates are discussed. Last week, I read an interview by Martins Bondars, a long-time aide to Vaira Vike-Freiberga. The Latvian president is elected by the parliament and the behind-the-scenes consultations about candidates are going on. The 7 leading candidates mentioned by Bondars are:

• Sandra Kalniete (1953) - one of leaders of Latvian independence movement in late 1980s, then embassador to several countries, then the minister for foreign affairs from 2002 to 2004.
• Andris Piebalgs (1957) - a slightly lower-profile member of the independence movement who also became an embassador and is now the Energy Commisionar for the European Commision.
• Ojars Kalnins (1949) - Latvian American activist, Latvia's embassador to US from 1993 to 1999, now leads the Latvian Institute, an organization devoted to promoting Latvia's image abroad. (Curious fact: the previous head of Latvian Institute was Vaira Vike-Freiberga, prior to her being elected as the president.)
• Ivars Lacis (1949) - professor of physics, the current rector (chancellor) of University of Latvia.
• Artis Pabriks (1966) - originally political scientist with Ph.D. from University of Aarhus (Denmark), currently the minister of foreign affairs of Latvia.
• Janis Jurkans (1946) - the first minister of foreign affairs for Latvia. Has recently claimed that he plans to quit politics.
• Zaneta Ozolina (1957) - political scientist, aide to Vaira Vike-Freiberga.

The shortlist is of surprisingly high quality (compared to say, candidates nominated by various parties in 1999). I would be happy with any of the first five candidates. I would not like to have Jurkans as the president, though, despite myself having voted for him in parliamentary election once. I know nearly nothing about Ozolina.

Sandra Kalniete belongs to Jaunais Laiks (New Era) party. Artis Pabriks belongs to Tautas Partija (People's Party). Janis Jurkans belongs (or used to belong) to Tautas Saskanas Partija (People's Harmony party). The rest of candidates are non-partisan and have no obvious links to a particular political party. In Latvian politics, that may actually be an advantage. If the next parliament is as fractured as this one, the candidate will need support from at least 3 different parties to win. And many political parties may find it easier to support a neutral candidate than someone from another party. (Particularly, if it's a party they are not on good terms with. Sandra Kalniete may have hurt her chances by joining New Era a few months ago.) That is how Vaira Vike-Freiberga was elected in 1999. Almost no one was voting for another party's candidate and then she emerged as a neutral figure who could draw support from 3 parties.

August opinion poll comments

First, the numbers are unofficial. Latvijas Fakti decided not to release them. This has some bizarre pre-history. A few weeks ago, Dzimtene party claimed that their true popularity is about 10 times higher than in Latvijas Fakti polls (11% instead of 1.2%) and asked the Latvian anti-corruption office to investigate Latvijas Fakti. Dzimtene is a moderately obscure party which recently attracted attention by nominating Vadim Putin (who has similar name but is not related to Russian president Vladimir Putin) as a candidate to Latvian parliament. That smelled like a publicity stunt and Dzimtene's claim about opinions polls being wrong has a similar smell. Some of people involved in Dzimtene have a history of such stunts and there is nothing surprising here. Nothing, except for the reaction of Latvijas Fakti. They said they are tired of people questioning their polls and decided not to release the most recent poll. (I wonder if that means that some more influential party is unhappy as well... Dzimtene is too obscure to merit such strong reaction.) Their decision was a pity because I respect Latvijas Fakti and their numbers. But, a few days later, newspapers got hold of the numbers and, now, everyone knows them.

Second, the big story is Jaunais Laiks (New Era) falling from the first place in July to the fourth place in August. Neatkariga Rita Avize (NRA), a newspaper hostile to New Era, credits the fall to their publication of transcripts of phone conversations between a businessmen who was being investigated by the tax service and senior New Era members. The businessmen was seeking for a help against the investigation and he was getting somewhat symphatetic response from New Era people. New Era Party has the same opinion about the reasons why they fall to the fourth place in the opinion poll, except that they call it as a "smear campaign by NRA".

I think they both may be reading too much into a small change in polls. New Era numbers have declined only by 1.3%. For a poll of 1000 people, that's 13 people and the probability of polling company accidentially choosing 13 less supporters of New Era this time is not the small. According to a calculation by this blogger, the probability of such event is 5-10%, meaning that New Era numbers would get underestimated by 1.3% once every 10-20 months. As long as there isn't another opinion poll confirming the change, it may just be random noise in data.

August opinion poll

From Latvijas Fakti polling agency, via today's Diena newspaper.

ZZS 11.5% (+1.1%)
PCTVL 10.4% (unch.)
Tautas Partija 9.8% (+0.9%)
Jaunais Laiks 9.5% (-1.3%)
TB/LNNK 6.6% (-1.4%)
LPP/LC 4.9% (-0.2%)
Saskanas Centrs 4.7% (-0.6%)
Social Democrats 3.8% (+0.7%)

Projected seats in the parliament:
ZZS 19 (+2)
PCTVL 17 (-1)
Tautas Partija 16 (+1)
Jaunais Laiks 15 (-4)
TB/LNNK 11 (-3)
LPP/LC 8 (unch.)
Saskanas Centrs 8 (-1)
Social Democrats 6 (+6)

The previous poll is here. There are some interesting events surrounding the current poll (the numbers are unofficial because the polling company refused to release them!). More on that in a few days.

US visa problem: completely outrageous

Today's most popular story from the TVNET news (by the number of comments it received): US visa interview ends with humiliating denial.

A music teacher from Talsi and four of her students were invited to give a sequence of concerts in US, to Latvian-American communities. On June 28, they went to US embassy in Riga for visa interviews. All of them were denied visas. The most outrageous aspect is that one of the students was not even asked a single question! The consular official just took her fingerprints, looked at her application form and denied the visa!

Supposedly, the official was concerned about them not returning to Latvia after their visit. This is a complete nonsense. Latvian American organizations have invited speakers and arts performers from Latvia many times over the last 15 years and I do not know of any instances when a person invited by a major Latvian American organization has not returned to Latvia.

Now, this is not the only case when a Latvian has been denied a US visa without a good reason. I know other cases, both among my friends (and friends of friends) and among people about whom I would read in newspapers. (One newspaper story from 4 years ago: Martins Karsums, the top junior hockey star in Latvia was denied visa when he wanted to play in a junior team in US. Luckily, that did not hurt his hockey career too much and he was still drafted by NHL in 2005.) What makes this case special (specially outrageous, that is) is the official denying visa without asking a single question. Does he think he can read minds? Or does he deny applications based on his mood?