Controversial mayors take office in Latvia

Jul 1, 2009, 12:56 GMT

Riga - Aged just 33, Nils Usakovs took over as Mayor of the Latvian capital, Riga Wednesday - one of the youngest heads of a major European city.

His election at the first meeting of the newly-elected city council has raised fears among some Latvian nationalist parties that the country is drifting back into the embrace of Russia 20 years after it began the process of breaking free of the Soviet Union.

Usakovs' Harmony Centre party enjoys solid support from Latvia's large Russian-speaking minority, but its strong showing in municipal elections held on June 6 was boosted by numbers of Latvian-speaking voters, too, after these became disillusioned by the country's slide into the European Union's deepest recession.

The new mayor is a former journalist who only entered politics in 2005. His rise has been rapid, and he is widely credited with helping to soften image of his party to make it more attractive to voters suspicious of its relationship with Moscow.

Harmony Centre has formed an alliance in Riga city council with the Latvia First/Latvian Way party headed by another controversial politician, former government minister Ainars Slesers.

Slesers has been connected to a series of scandals involving vote- buying and providing well-paid jobs to associates, but the millionaire businessman always manages to emerge with his high public profile and poll ratings intact thanks to big-spending election campaigns.

Meanwhile in the important port city of Ventspils, yet another controversial politician was re-elected as mayor Wednesday.

Businessman Aivars Lembergs is one of Latvia's wealthiest individuals and is currently standing trial on fraud and corruption charges.

But that has not stopped him retaining local support which credits Lembergs with attracting investment and jobs to Ventspils.