Latvia, Legislation

Nils Usakovs.

The Riga City Council will vote on the new mayor at its first meeting on July 1, informs LETA.

Ainars Slesers of Latvia's First Party/Latvia's Way will be nominated for vice-mayor.

As reported, Harmony Center will have 26 seats at the Riga City Council and LPP/LC will have 12 seats, therefore both these parties can form a stable majority with 38 out of 60 members of the city council.

Usakovs also received the greatest support of all individual candidates at the Riga City Council elections - 62,784 voters gave Usakovs the plus mark in their ballot papers.

Girts Valdis Kristovskis of Civic Union was the second most popular candidate with 36,959 "pluses", whereas Slesers placed third with support from 27,801 voters.

The other two parties that have been elected to the Riga City Council - Civic Union and New Era, with 14 and eight councilmen respectively – will most probably form the city council's opposition.

As reported, more than one-half of the current Riga City Council members were not re-elected.

Three out of four current Riga City Council coalition parties have not been re-elected: Vice Mayor Andris Argalis' People's Party, which currently has nine seats on the Riga City Council, Riga Mayor Janis Birks' For Fatherland And Freedom/LNNK, which has eight representatives, and Vice-Mayor Janis Dinevics' Latvian Social Democratic Workers' Party with five Riga City Council members.

Homeland/Latvia's Socialist Party group at the Riga City Council, which included three councilmen, will not be represented, as well as For Human Rights In United Latvia, which currently has eight councilmen.

At the previous Riga City Council elections, New Era earned 13 seats on the city council, For Human Rights In United Latvia got nine, People's Party eight, the joint ticket of Homeland and Latvia's Socialist Party eight, Latvian Social Democratic Workers Party seven, For Fatherland And Freedom/LNNK six, New Center five, and Latvia's First Party/Latvia's Way four.