Opposition Latvian lawmaker tapped to form interim government / Photo: Gints Ivuskans, AFP - AFP
Opposition Latvian lawmaker tapped to form interim government
Latvia's president on Saturday appointed an opposition lawmaker, Andris Kulbergs, to form an interim government following the collapse of the ruling coalition in a row over stray Ukrainian drones.
Kulbergs, a 46-year-old former businessman considered "pragmatic" by local media, said he hoped to create an "enlarged coalition" to administer the Baltic country until parliamentary elections are held October 3.
"The president has given me 10 days," he told reporters.
Latvia's prime minister Evika Silina resigned on Thursday after a key party in her coalition withdrew support because Silina sacked her defence minister, a member of that party.
She fired the minister after saying Latvia's anti-drone defences had not deployed fast enough to parry two wayward Ukraine attack drones likely knocked off course by Russian jamming.
President Edgars Rinkevics settled on Kulbergs after meeting representatives from all the parties in parliament. He told reporters on Saturday that he had invited Kulbergs to form a government.
Should Kulbergs succeed, the cabinet line-up would still need to be approved by the parliament.
Several Russian and Ukrainian drones have crashed in Latvia over the course of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, stirring public disquiet in the small former Soviet republic that is now a member of NATO and the EU.
On May 7, two Ukrainian drones flew over from Russia, with one of them crashing into a petrol depot in the east of Latvia, causing a fire that was quickly contained.
On March 25, another stray Ukrainian drone crashed in Latvia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said after speaking with Rinkevics at a summit in Romania on Wednesday that he would send Ukrainian experts to Latvia to help it boost its air defences.
F.Fischer--HHA
