Parties weigh coalition with Ainārs Šlesers as election approaches
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Latvia’s governing parties are planning to stay in power together after the upcoming parliamentary elections, but the math may require a difficult choice. If they fail to secure a majority, they must decide whether to invite Ainārs Šlesers into the cabinet, a prospect that occupies much of the pre-election debate alongside the fate of the Istanbul Convention.
In the courts and on the farm, an investigation has turned its attention to a high-end tractor parked on the property of former minister Armands Krause. Authorities are looking for links between the machinery and a timber industry scandal; it is the kind of specific, rural detail that tends to linger in the public mind longer than the economist Pēteris Strautiņš’s warnings about the country’s ‘peppermint seller’ business mentality.
Health officials are monitoring 46 people who have been struck by a sudden, severe illness. While the cause remains unclear, the cases have surfaced just as the national mood is already dampened by the rising cost of everything from car parts to bank loans. In Talsi, a fatal accident involving an elderly pedestrian has prompted a familiar call for harsher penalties for aggressive driving.