Latvia's ruling government has agreed to form a new ruling coalition that will include a multiparty alliance containing some ultranationalists, Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis said Friday. After the center-right government won the Oct. 2 parliamentary election, coalition talks dragged on over concerns that including an alliance with increasingly nationalistic views would harm Latvia's image in the West and damage fragile relations with neighboring Russia. The alliance—All for Latvia-For Fatherland and Freedom/LNNK—has five members in the outgoing 100-member legislature and will have eight in the new one. Overall, the coalition—whose heavyweights will be the Mr. Dombrovskis-led Unity party and the populist Greens and Farmers Union—will control 63 seats. Many of the incoming lawmakers from the All for Latvia party, part of a grouping that calls itself the patriotic alliance, are young and inexperienced—one is 22 years old—and renowned for ultra-nationalist views. Mr. Dombrovskis told journalists he had decided to cooperate with the nationalists after they pledged not to touch the Baltic state's sensitive ethnic-policy issues.
Some ultranationalists from All for Latvia, which is widely credited with rejuvenating the alliance, have suggested that Latvia should solve its ethnic problems though "repatriation"—a code word for sending ethnic Russians to Russia. Repatriation is a fringe idea and rejected by most Latvians. All for Latvia members have also said that all public education in the Baltic state should be in Latvian, a move that would enrage the native Russian-speaking part of the population, who make up about one-third of Latvia's 2.3 million people. Currently native Russian speakers can receive most of their primary-school education in Russian and some 40% of high-school instruction as well, with the remainder given in Latvian. Mr. Dombrovskis said the nationalist alliance had agreed not to raise issues of education and repatriation while cooperating in the coalition. However, Raivis Dzintars, the chairman for All for Latvia, said in a statement Friday that although the party had agreed to waive these issues for now, it would continue working on them. Mr. Dombrovskis said the parties were still negotiating over ministerial positions, though it was likely that national alliance would receive one post.
Associated press
