Bens Latkovskis / Autori

Šo sarunu ar ilggadējo ZZS frakcijas līderi Saeimā un bijušo Latvijas Zemnieku savienības (LZS) priekšsēdētāju Augustu Brigmani iniciēja raksts “14. Saeimas rezultāti”. Brigmanis kā joprojām aktīvs LZS biedrs vēlējās precizēt dažus, viņaprāt, diskutablus jautājumus saistībā ar nākamruden paredzētajām 14. Saeimas vēlēšanām.

In an interview with TV3's morning program "900 sekundes", Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš made some debatable statements and was basically inciting people.

On Saturday's TV24 program "Nacionālo interešu klubs", talking about changes in the world after the 9/11 terrorist attack, Professor Leons Taivans expressed the idea of the decline of US power.

In the first part of this series, I wrote that although the 14th Saeima elections are nominally scheduled after more than a year, we can already talk about their results, because the construction of the political system in Latvia is finished, which means that only insignificant, cosmetic changes are possible in the future. In the previous article, I described this new political system, but this time I will talk about the main task (goal) of this election and the mechanisms by which this goal will be achieved. And, of course, about the very results of the 14th Saeima elections.

As in the aftermath of any particularly tragic event, also after the terrorist attack of September 11 2001, statements were often made in the public sphere that "the world will never be the same again", "history will be divided into 'before 9/11' and 'after 9/11'” and the like.

Although the elections to the 14th Saeima are nominally planned only after more than a year, we can already talk about their results, because in Latvia the construction of the load-bearing structures of the political system has been fully completed. This means that only insignificant, cosmetic changes are possible in the future.

One of the main faces of last summer's protests in Belarus - flutist Maria Kolesnikova - was sentenced to 11 years in prison in a closed and secret "court" hearing on Monday. As even her lawyers were forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement, these 11 years are practically the only thing known about the trial itself.

It is about 1.5 km from Kyiv Central Railway Station, where the bus from Boryspil Airport stops, to the booked hotel. Already in Riga, looking at the map, we decided to go this distance on foot. In reality, however, everything looks a little different than when studying the map at home, so after getting a bit lost, I asked a passerby - a forty-year-old, portly, simply dressed man - how to get to the Olympic Stadium, which is the nearest landmark to the hotel.

August 31 is the deadline for US troops to leave Afghanistan. The deadline was originally set by the United States itself, but has now been set by the Taliban as an ultimatum, putting US President Joe Biden in a rather ambiguous position.

The theme of Covid is convincingly dominating the agenda of Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš. Every time he speaks, he talks about Covid first and foremost. It cannot be missed that this topic is close to Kariņš, and it seems that he is convinced that political points can be gained by exploiting it. Unlike other things where people demand real, tangible results.

When the regime of President Ashraf Ghani fell in Kabul on August 15 and Taliban militants entered the city, I was in Ukraine. Judging by the tweets, many people in Latvia felt heartbroken, sympathizing with the poor people who were scrambling up the fuselages of planes already on the runway at Kabul Airport just to get away from their country - Afghanistan.

Traveling from Latvia to abroad by plane for the first time in a while, the first surprise was caused by the Riga Airport. The departure hall on the second floor can be entered only through one entrance, at which the security guard not only checks if everyone has a strip of cloth in front of their face, but also requires showing a plane ticket reservation. That is, the airline's invitation to check-in.

This time, when, in the words of Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš, there is more money than ever before, is a time of harvest for various "research" offices, which "research" everything that can be "researched" for state (that is, our) money. As early as January, "research" was presented on public attitudes to Covid-19 disease and related phenomena, including "conspiracy theories".

The situation on the Belarusian-Lithuanian border has been significantly deteriorating since April, but it has become absolutely crazy in recent weeks. Every day, more than a hundred illegal border crossers cross the border between the two countries with the obvious blessing of the Belarusian authorities. The number of direct flights on the Baghdad-Minsk route has increased from two flights a week to four. There is a reasonable suspicion that these "refugees" are being transported in an organized manner to places where illegal border crossings are taking place.

On July 27, the US Congress (House select committee) launched an investigation into the Capitol riot on January 6. Admittedly, this investigation seems to be highly politicized from the very beginning, which once again confirms that all people in this world are more or less similar, and the purpose of such committees is similar in Latvia, the United States and elsewhere - to stage a political tribunal, which usually quickly turns into a farce.

The events of the last days in Tunisia makes me think about the future of democracy in the world and in Latvia. It was in this North African country that the self-immolation of the street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi in December 2010 began what was later called the Arab Spring. Now, more than a decade later, this "spring" is over in Tunisia. The last Arab country to maintain democracy has abandoned it like a worn dress.

The agreement between US President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Nordstream-2 can be described in various loud words: both as a betrayal of Ukraine, which is fighting Russian aggression alone, and as a sensible policy that will bring Russia-West relations out of the deep and protracted crisis and will form a new alliance in the fight against the Eastern dragon - China.

Last week I published an article "The specter of Marxism, risen from the grave, roams the world again and has made it to Latvia", in which I outlined some of the main ideological guidelines of modern Marxism, including transgenderism. Andrejs Panteļejevs, an ideologue and leader of the Saeima faction of the former right-liberal party Latvian Way (Latvijas Ceļš), rebuked me on Facebook: “I just don't understand why Marxism is mentioned here at all. Marx does not talk about transgenderism anywhere. Postmodernist ideologues talk about it, but I don't see a connection with Marx here."

The US departure from Afghanistan may not in itself be a super-important issue for the world, but it marks a general move towards political localization (as opposed to globalization). Figuratively speaking, the policeman has decided to stick his nose in the ghetto quarter as little as possible.

Exactly on the day of the Storming of Bastille - July 14 - Kariņš's government outlined a vision of the new reality of Latvia - an ever wider and deeper division of the population into vaccinated and non-vaccinated. According to the government's proposed amendments to the Law on the Management of Covid, from October 1, employees of medical, social care and educational institutions will only be allowed to work with a valid Covid certificate. Minister of the Interior Marija Golubeva, for her part, has said that this group is likely to be joined by employees of the interior system, including firefighters, among whom currently less than half are vaccinated.

Singapore is a unique country, whose main feature since the time of the legendary Lee Kuan Yew has been extraordinary, innovative solutions that allowed the city to turn from an ordinary, backwards fishing village into one of the most developed places on the globe in half a century.

When next year, before the 14th Saeima elections, the swollen group of propagandists of Unity (Vienotība) will chant and repeat the phrase - Kariņš carried our country on his shoulders during the most difficult stage of the crisis, it must be clear that they are outright lies. In fact, the opposite is true. Never before has Kariņš felt as comfortable, free and relaxed as he is now, during a pandemic. Kariņš has not gone through any "difficult" stage. I would even assume that Kariņš's government would have long since collapsed, if not for the pandemic. You want facts? Evidence? Here you go.