Riga - Latvian President Valdis Zatlers urged parliament on Wednesday to change the constitution to grant voters a right to call snap elections. "To quickly and successfully solve parliamentary and state crises, the constitution has to allow a right to dissolve the parliament prematurely to both the president and a number of voters voting in a referendum," Zatlers told parliamentarians during an extraordinary session in the Latvian capital Riga.
Zatlers' speech comes three days after Latvian voters failed to pass the 50-per-cent threshold to validate a referendum on amending the constitution to give the people the right to dissolve the 100- member unicameral parliament.
Of those who voted, 96.5 per cent supported the measure while only 3 per cent voted against it.
Saturday's poll was the second referendum since the last elections in October 2006.
Latvians voted on amendments to national security laws stopped by former president Vaira Vike-Freiberga last summer, and they will again vote in a referendum on amendments to the law on pensions on August 23.
A deteriorating economy, rampant corruption, the highest inflation in the EU and a seeming disregard of the voters by the centre-right government served as a backdrop to the referendum.
Under Latvian law, the president can dissolve parliament only by putting his own job on the line in a nationwide referendum. No president has ever used this right.
Public discontent came to a peak last year under former prime minister Aigars Kalvitis, whose three years in office made him Latvia's longest-serving premier.
Although Kalvitis was also the first premier to retain his position after the polls, winning the last parliamentary elections in October 2006, he quickly fell out of favour with the public.
In October and November, thousands protested on the streets of Riga against Kalvitis' sacking of the national anti-corruption chief.
Critics claimed the sacking - after a probe by state auditors exposed the purported misuse of funds by anti-graft officials - showed Kalvitis' lack of respect for the rule of law because he overstepped his powers in firing the official.
