Normally I would not write on this non-political blog about the outrageous, depraved state-capture corruption in Latvia suggested by a written agreement between a powerful oligarch and one (probably several) Latvian political parties. However, the alleged (?) contract published on
delfi.lv and widely discussed in the media (it was first disclosed by TV talk show host and investigative journalist Jānis Domburs) contains a direct reference to
Lattelecom. Under the contract, the political party agrees not to promote the privatization of
Lattelecom. The contract was signed between the now jailed Ventspils mayor and oligarch Aivars Lembergs and his circle and, apparently, the
Latvian Social Democratic Workers Party (!) in 1999, but it may well have been renegotiated with other parties with the same terms. By some accounts, the Social Democrats were paid LVL 70 000 for their cooperation, a fair sum eight years ago, but chump change today. Anyway, the existence of these kinds of secret contracts and back-door financial support could be one reason why the privatization of
Lattelecom and
Latvian Mobile Telephone has been running in place for all these years...
P.J. O'Rourke has already written a book called
Parliament of Whores, and, anyway, I don't write about Latvia's parliament, the
Saeima.
Mauku Saeima, anyone?
And from a market anarchist blog:
It's terribly unfair to compare government officials to whores. It slanders whores. What have whores ever done to deserve being compared with government officials?
