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Sacked Riga Mayor assures he’s not clinging to power

The politician says it is not important for him to keep his post

Nils Usakovs Artiom Geodakyan/TASS

Nils Usakovs

© Artiom Geodakyan/TASS

RIGA, April 8. /TASS/. Dismissed Riga Mayor Nils Usakovs said on Monday that he is not resisting efforts to unseat him, but is rather trying to stop the Latvian nationalists from ascending to power in the Riga City Council and destroying all the work he and his team have done for the sake of the citizens of Riga.

"It is not important for me to keep my post, it is important that my deeds and my team continue to work in the future. I personally don’t want everything we’ve done for the citizens to fall to pieces. I don’t want the nationalists to come in and destroy everything, from kindergartens to free public transport. Then, we’ll get a second government, which would be far worse," he said in an interview with the local Baltkom radio station.

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According to the politician, after his dismissal, a coalition of representatives from the Social Democratic Party "Harmony" chaired by Usakovs and the Honor to serve Riga party continues to work in the Riga City Council. "Thirty-two deputies that participated in the 2017 municipal elections have kept on working. This is a unique team, comprised of representatives from the two parties, that has been working for 10 years now. And this is not easy, given the enormous pressure," Usakovs pointed out.

"Now the Riga City Council is blamed for everything everywhere. If a cat was run over by a car, the Harmony Party is to blame. Now once road repairs are going to begin everyone will again curse the Council that everything is being repaired. I, as the leader of the party, will make every effort to ensure that the team succeeds," he vowed.

Usakovs also again emphasized that he won’t back down. "If someone hopes that I am that person, that I will retreat, don’t hold your breath! I won’t give up, and I will still be with my voters, I will work for them whatever the status, place and location of my job," he stressed.

On Friday, Latvia’s official publisher Latvijas Vestnesis published a decree signed by Minister for Environmental Protection and Regional Development Juris Puce ordering the dismissal of Riga Mayor Nils Usakovs. The decree listed all the violations that Usakovs committed as mayor, which mainly relate to the cooperation between the city and the Rigas Satiksme transportation company that claims that there were inconsistencies in a report on the authorized capital of the Riga transportation enterprise and budget injections into it.

As the directive stipulates, Nils Usakovs, as Mayor of Riga and a Rigas Satiksme shareholder, is fully responsible for all the discrepancies in the reports, it also states that the decision can be appealed within 30 days of its publication. Usakovs has already vowed to fight his dismissal in court by filing an appeal.

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