According to experts, the New Year’s speeches of Latvia’s leaders were quite weak.
Political scientist Jurgis Liepnieks, in a discussion on his YouTube channel with psychotherapist and publicist Neil Konstantinov, called the tradition of having both the Prime Minister and the President congratulate the nation on TV just minutes before the New Year very strange. "I don’t even know of any other country that has something like this. It certainly doesn’t exist in large European countries," noted J. Liepnieks.
He reminded that initially only the head of government congratulated the Latvians. Everything changed when Šķēle became Prime Minister, who knew how to use the New Year’s speech to boost his popularity. Then the then-President Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga decided that she also needed to think about her political rating. And after the Prime Minister’s speech, the President’s speech followed.
Prime Ministers and Presidents changed, but... the established tradition was not changed by anyone.
Speaking about the current speeches of Siliņš and Rinkēvičs, Konstantinov described these speeches as quite weak. Rinkēvičs particularly received criticism from Konstantinov - in the expert’s opinion, the President was given a speech that was completely unsuitable for him.
"He advised people to wear reflectors at night and not to swim while drunk. Perhaps these are relevant issues, but are they problems at the level of a President and for New Year’s Eve?" lamented the psychotherapist.
