OREANDA-NEWS. The Minister of Environmental Protection and Regional Development of Latvia, Juris Puce, believes that early elections to the Riga City Council won't take place, as Oleg Burov, who represents the Honor to Serve Riga (HSR) party, will be elected new mayor of Riga.

"I think that the Riga City Council will elect a leader. I don't see a single circumstance that would indicate that the Riga City Council will not elect a chairman of the City Council. I assess this politically", he said on Tuesday on the local television channel. “If the colleagues from the opposition in the Riga Duma“ New Unity ”and the New Conservative Party don't realize that it is possible to elect another chairman, Oleg Burov will be the chairman of the Duma”, he added.

According to his forecasts, the political crisis in the city hall won't lead to early elections. "I think that many of the politicians who use the argument that they want to hold early elections don't really want this. They want to position themselves more, this is a kind of rhetoric, the use of such statements. In fact, they do not want this, and this will lead to the fact that a new chairman of the Duma will be elected", said Puce.

The minister believes that opposition parties in the Duma have the opportunity to change the policies and leadership in the municipality, but many of the deputies are not aware of this. “Unfortunately, it looks like some of the deputies didn't realize this and actually accepted that nothing will change, so Burov will be elected like that, so now isn't the time to position ourselves that we are against everything.

Well then, most likely, Oleg Burov will be elected if nothing changes. But I believe that there is still an opportunity to change power in the Riga City Council, but the question is whether all opposition parties in the City Council are ready for this challenge", he said.