Latvian political unknown elected president

0 Comments | AFP, May, 2007

RIGA (AFP) — Latvian lawmakers on Thursday elected a medical doctor with little experience in politics, Valdis Zatlers, the third president of the Baltic state since it won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

Zatlers will take office on July 7, when the second four-year term of head of state Vaira Vike-Freiberga expires.

The 52-year-old Zatlers, who was nominated for the presidency by the ruling centre-right coalition, beat opposition candidate Aivars Endzins by 58 votes to 39. Fifty-one votes, or a simple majority in the 100-seat parliament, were needed to secure the presidency.

Like Vike-Freiberga, Zatlers comes to the presidency with little political experience.

Vike-Freiberga was a psychology professor when she was elected for the first...