Extraordinary elections bring power change in Latvia’s capital

The Latvian capital Riga will be governed by a coalition of several parties built around a liberal-left alliance that gained just over 26 percent of the vote in the August 29 extraordinary elections to the 60-member city council.

The election, with a record low participation of 40.6 percent of eligible voters in the city. formally ended more than 10 years of scandal-ridden rule by the allegedly pro-Russian, self-declared social democratic Harmony (S) party and its allies, who were dismissed when the city council was…