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Central Europe
February 1, 2019
of the searches broke. “It looks like my Christmas wish is coming to fruition,” he added.
“Nils Usakovs, as a coward, of course, does not intend to depart from the position of the Chairman of the Riga City Council, therefore all opposition parties of the Riga City Council have signed and submitted a request to convene an extraordinary meeting to suspend Mr Ushakov,” Kirsis commented also on Twitter later in the day.
“The Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau informs that today, on January 30, in the framework of the criminal proceedings initiated earlier, the office carried out criminal proceedings, including court-sanctioned searches at several addresses. At present, no person is subject to a custodial security measure,” said a KNAB statement.
“The KNAB states that no person shall be pre-
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sumed guilty until proved guilty according to the law,” it added.
Harmony won the largest share of the vote in the Latvian general election on October 6, scooping 19.8% of the vote and 23 seats in the 100-seat parliament.
However, other parties once again came together to form a broad coalition to ensure it was isolated from power. Harmony’s apparent pro-Russia stance is a political liability in Latvia, once a part of the Soviet Union and currently an enthusiastic member of the EU and Nato.
The party, which has recently revamped itself with a social-democratic gloss, won the most votes in the three previous elections too, yet it was invari- ably pushed aside by a coalition government of other parties.
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