• Ex-President Guntis Ulmanis: communication between communities is more difficult now; right-wing parties uniting against “ethnic Russian mayor” is a sign of weakness
• Proposals on the status of participants of WWII got criticised

 

Vesti Segodnya interviewed ex-President of Latvia Guntis Ulmanis. Mr.Ulmanis sees positive tendencies in the society, certain consolidation, since many ethnic Latvians speak Russian and many ethnic Russians learned Latvian. However, he sees a negative tendency that Latvians and Russians are no longer willing to openly speak their mind to each other. Any problems are easier to solve if there is an open discussion, but unfortunately, now the relations between Russin community and ethnic Latvians are much more difficult, and now Russian community is more clearly separated than 20 years ago. Mr.Ulmanis believes the Orthodox Christmas will eventually be granted official status. He is adamant that Latvian should remain the only state language. On the doorstep of the municipal elections, the problem of right-wing parties is that they fail to understand the voters are not interested in political theories, slogans or global politics, but are interested in comfortable and smooth running of the municipality, and the incumbent administration of Riga delivers just that. Mr.Ulmanis sees it a sign of weakness that the right-wing parties are only able to unite “against Usakovs” (the incumbent mayor of Riga) and their only trumpcard is the fact that Mr.Usakovs is ethnic Russian.

 

Vesti Segodnya continues to report about the reactions to the initiative of the President of Latvia Andris Berzins on reconciliation of veterans who fought on the opposite sides during the WWII. According to psychotherapist, Dr. Med. Boriss Donnikovs, every family in the former Soviet Union has suffered during the WWII, and also his mother was sent to the Nazi concentration camp. Mr. Donnikovs endorses the idea of reconciliation, but disagrees with the idea to “sort-out” the veterans according to the draft law on the status of the participants of WWII, such as denial of the status to partisans and underground resistance participants, volunteers of the Anti-Hitlerite coalition, as well as non-citizens. Mr. Donnikovs highlights that unlike the veterans of the SS legion, the veterans of the Anti-Hitlerite coalition do not receive state support.

 

• New Year’s Address by the president of Latvia Andris Berzins

 

In the New Year’s Address, the president of Latvia Andris Berzins highlighted several achievements made by Latvia during 2012, such as the fastest growing economy among the EU, creation of new jobs and the new budget which does not foresee new cuts. He also acknowledged that the reality of Latvia is that alongside the success stories about the overcoming of the crisis, there is also greater social cleavage and certain feeling of alienation among some. Regarding the upcoming municipal elections in 2013, Mr. President emphasised that this should be a “competition” for votes which does not translate into a “fight”, and called for the parties not to “look for enemies or divide the society” into “ours” and “aliens”. Latvijas Avize