11 September 2003 15:04
}{Daugavpils battles mayoral instability}{b
}{ The Daugavpils city council, meeting in a special session on Sept.4, confirmed Rita Strode as the new mayor by a
vote of 11-4 following the resignation of Ivars Skincs, who had stepped down after only four months in office. This
latest development come s at a turbulent time in local politics in Daugavpils, Latvia\rquote s second largest city. \par
Problems recently reached crisis proportions when Latvijas Gaze cut off the supply of natural gas after the city\rquote
s debt to the company exceeded 1 million lats (1.6 million euros). Residents who had dutifully paid their bills were
suddenly without hot water, and with autumn approaching there was a very real possibility that people could be left
without heat. Many blamed former mayor Rihards Eigims, who came to power in the last municipal election in 2001, for
saddling the city with massive debts. Others claimed that Dauvapils\rquote problems dated back to the administration of
Aleksejs Vidavskis, now a member of Parliament. \par Daugavpils, with 115,000 residents, has seen its fare shar e of
controversy. The restoration of independence brought a renaissance among the diverse cultures here, but other troubles
still remained. Some aging factories failed to pay their workers or were closed, the city\rquote s principal employer
was sold to a Singapore company that went bankrupt and unemployment \endash difficult to measure because of the way the
statistics are presented by the national government \endash soared. \par Ethnic Latvians make up only 16 percent of the
population \endash down from over a third before the occupation \endash and some do not know their own language. For
many years there was only a single Latvian secondary school in the city. Eigims, the former mayor, barely speaks
Latvian. \par The bulk of the non-Russian minorities identify with Russian culture and the lingua franca remains Russian
for the most part. Over 30,000 residents in Daugavpils lack Latvian citizenship and are therefore barred from voting in
local elections. \par After the country regained its freedom in August 1991, then-mayor Vidavskis was deposed by the
national government because of his alleged efforts to block Latvian independence. His appointed replacement was Valdis
Lauskis, who later headed the Social Democratic faction in the Saeima, Latvia\rquote s Parliament. \par But Vidavskis --
formerly close to the helm of the city\rquote s largest industrial complex, a textile plant often called \'93the
Chemistry\'94 by locals that has changed its name several times -- soon returned to power in the first democratic
municipal elections. A canny politician, he maintained close contacts with Latvia\rquote s Way, which until the most
recent parliamentary elections was one of the leading parties in Latvia. \par Technically, Vidavskis may not have been
eligible to run for the city council in 2001. In 1997, Radio Free Europe reported that several local a nd regional
judges refused to take up his case although he had allegedly been involved in the Communist Party's efforts to
block the recovery of Latvian independence. The news and broadcast organization explained that if the justices had
confirmed his inv o lvement, Vidavskis would have been ineligible for public office under Latvian law. The prosecutor
general was ultimately had to drop the charges altogether because of the unwillingness to of the justices to consider
the case. Successful legislative effort s to exempt him were scorned as \'93Vidavsky\rquote s Law.\'94 \par
But the sale of the large textile plant to Tolaram Fibers, and the subsequent collapse of the company, which had a
tremendous impact on a city already reeling from economic woes, brought Eigims and his populist Latgalian Light Party to
power in 2001. \par Eigims, derided by the }{\i Financial Times}{ as a \'93wannabe oligarch,\'94 is a
successful businessman who recently sold his Disneyland-like gas station \endash a place where fuel pumps were
surrounded by an elaborate park and a playground -- and most of his other assets. The rise of his company, Stalkers, led
to Daugavpils being dubbed \'93Stalkerland\'94 by the Latvian newspaper }{\i Diena}{, which often ran negative
articles about his administration. \par This past April opposition to Eigims in the city council came to a head, forcing
him to step down He was criticized for trying to run things single-handedly, mounting debts and damaging relations with
the national government. Except for Eigims and three former members of his party, the entire c ouncil formed a broad
coalition. \par Ivars Skincs became mayor next, but he resigned last week after only four and a half months in office.
\par The new mayor, Rita Strode, is the only member of the council from Latvia\rquote s Way. She faced no opposing
candidate in the Sept. 4 council meeting. \par \'93Party membership doesn\rquote t matter \endash they\rquote re
all in the same coalition,\'94 said Liga Korsakova, press secretary for the council. \par Strode, respected for her
work with cultural groups in the Vidavskis administration, is entering a difficu lt situation. Her immediate
predecessor, Skincs, was forced to take a short-term loan of 1.5 million lats for unpaid city construction bills and a
long-term loan of 3 million lats to cover lingering debts, in addition to borrowing 3,000 tons of fuel from the national
reserve. \par Eigims gave very little comment on the current state of affairs. \'93Whatever will be, will
be,\'94 he told }{\i The Baltic Times}{. \par A French company, Rhodia, now owns part of the textile plant\endash
but employs only about a tenth of its former work force. \par Still, Vladimirs Nadezdins, director of the Daugavpils
branch of the Latvian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, is guardedly optimistic about the future. \par \'93We have
about thirty very successful manufacturers now. Compare that to Jekabpils [in eastern Latvia],\'94 he said. \par
\'93The main problem is that it\rquote s difficult to get different business and political interests to work
together for the good of the city,\'94 Nadezdins added.}{
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