Computer technician? Accountant? No, Prime Minister of Latvia!

Browsing the web, I have just encountered a blog entry written by FT journalist Gideon Rachman, where he shortly described his first impressions after the meeting with the Prime Minister of Latvia:

This morning I saw the Latvian prime minister, Valdis Dombrovskis - who, irritatingly, is eight years younger than me - he's 37. It was all charmingly informal. I turned up at the government offices and said "I have come to see the prime minister", several times very slowly to the security guard on the door. Eventually he understood, pointed at the stairs and waved three fingers at me - which I accurately interpreted as meaning "third floor". When I got up there, a woman popped out of an office and introduced herself as the PM's secretary and went to fetch me a cup of coffee. After a while, a man in short sleeves and glasses wandered into the office. I did vaguely wonder whether he was a computer technician, since he had a faintly geeky air. But when he said, "well we might as well get started", it struck me that that this must - in fact - be the prime minister himself.

That post might lead you to think that the journalist himself was completely unprepared as he even hardly recognized the PM, but we cannot deny the fact that our PM looks like a modest accountant or a computer technician. Note, that I did not say "unfortunately". I tend to think that in the situation we are now, we do not need a charismatic man, a bright political figure, but rather a modest accountant. The old Russian song from the mid 90s comes to my mind:

And look at this picture taken from the Award Ceremony of the European man in Latvia organized by the European Movement Latvia on December 29, 2009.
Where do you think the PM is? He sits in the front row along with other participants of the ceremony. The photographs pay attention not to him, but to the journalist of the Latvian Radio based in Brussels, who was receiving an award. They even turned their back to him. Standing in the back corner of the hall (as I was late), I remembered my Georgian experience.


Once (it was in January 2008) my French colleague organized an exhibition of the photo works made by the children from the local children's house of Rustavi. The exhibition was organized on the first floor of the Rustavi City Hall. That day the weather was very nice with the blue sky and shining sun. I was a bit late and missed the opening ceremony, running directly from the Tbilisi market with sacks full of hand-made socks and other stuff for my friends as I was supposed to leave in a couple of days. Enjoying the exhibition and the weather outside, my Lithuanian colleague and I went out for a talk, standing near the entrance of the Rustavi municipality. In the midst of conversation I started to show him the amazing handcrafts I managed to buy. Then suddenly the guard came to us, in a rude way asking us in Russian to go away from the municipality. We obeyed and moved aside from the main entrance, but then again he came to us, asking us to leave the place and mentioning that this is not a market place. He did not want to hear our explanations that we are visitors of the exhibition. On my question, why we should leave as this is a public place, the guard answered, pointing to the municipality building: "This is the State!" We left the place, but I could not calm down, referring all the time to my Latvian experience, where everybody can enter the Riga City Hall and even attend the sessions.

The thinking and reasoning of that guard is a legacy of the Soviet Union, when people perceived the State as something, which stands above them, which is unreachable, and the duty of an individual is to obey the State. The same attitude I found, standing near the Tbilisi City Hall, which used to be a meeting place for me and my friends (then I changed it to the Opera House to avoid any problems). Even the entrance to the inauguration ceremony of the president of Georgia in January 2008 was by invitations only. I managed to sneak in with the blank invitation given to me by a stranger (see below). But that time I was so upset that only selected persons could attend the ceremony on Rustaveli avenue in front of the Parliament building. It seemed to me that the president himself divided people into two categories – those whom he trusts, his supporters and the rest.
Let's go back to Latvia, to that ceremony… I realised that there is still a ray of hope that despite all the hardships we can manage to become a prosperous nation with a deep rooted democratic tradition. We are on the halfway, and we should not give up. I believe that we will manage to deal with corruption, nepotism and cronyism and that is why I am staying home, in Latvia!