Jelgava county deputies have not yet decided on Lasmanis’ release, but there are speculations about his replacements

The deputies of the Jelgava County Council will not yet decide on the dismissal of the chairman Madaras Lasmanis (LA) from his position.

At today’s city council meeting, Jelgava county deputies, with nine votes in favor and five against, with four abstentions, rejected the inclusion of the supplementary question on the dismissal of mayor Lasmanis from the meeting’s agenda.

MP Irina Dolgova (Skaņa), when asked what her vote would be at the April 3 meeting, told the LETA agency that “the situation should be evaluated as a whole” – the actions of executive director Līga Lonerte, actions of Lasmani.

She condemns the actions of Lasmanis seen in the video recording, but thinks that the colleagues who made the recording public acted even worse, because the situation should have been “solved internally”. She sees as an argument in defense of Lasmanis the fact that the meetings of the Budget Commission have never been public, moreover, the chairman of the council did not know that his actions were also visible to his colleagues, who did not point it out during the meetings, “which would be collegial”.

In Dolgova’s opinion, in order to release Lasmanis from his position, his professional activity must be evaluated, but in the municipality, “political games have started with the executive director”, whose work Lasmanis offers to evaluate.

On the other hand, deputy Uldis Ainārs (JV) believes that Lasmanis should resign himself, without waiting for the vote after Easter. According to the deputy, Lasmanis should be replaced due to poor organization of the work of the Budget Commission. There is also no justification for Lasmanis’ actions at the March 13 meeting.

Ainārs predicted that Lasmanis could lose his position and Emīla Dobrāja (LA) or Ilzi Vītola (LZS) could be elected in his place, and “the top ten will roll on”.

Artūrs Semyonov, a member of Ainār’s party, also spoke about such a possible future leadership of the city council, who believes that voting Dobrāj into office “would help keep the coalition together”.

Madars Lasmanis. Photo: Lita Krone/LETA