MPs elect Jewish ex-Soviet dissident as Latvian president

RIGA, Latvia — The Latvian parliament has elected European Court of Justice judge and former Soviet dissident Egils Levits as the new president of the Baltic state.

Sixty-one of the 100 members of parliament vote for the German-educated candidate of the governing coalition parties.

“I will be president for the whole of Latvia: for those who live in the country and those who live abroad, for the poor and the better-off,” Levits, 63, says.

Levits and his parents, Latvian patriots of Jewish origin, were expelled from the Soviet Union in 1972 because the KGB viewed them as a threat to the Communist regime.

Newly elected Latvian president, former European Court of Justice judge Egils Levits gives a press conference in Riga, Latvia, on May 29, 2019. (Ilmars ZNOTINS / AFP)

The family settled in Germany where Levits obtained law and political science degrees before returning to Latvia a decade later and entering politics.

— AFP