| Office | Name | Party | Since |
|---|---|---|---|
| President | Andris Bērziņš | Union of Greens and Farmers | 8 July 2011 |
The president is elected by Parliament for a maximum of two terms of four-years, by secret ballot and by an absolute majority of the vote (Constitution of Latvia, Articles 35, 36 and 39).
The President is a largely ceremonial Head of State, and in common with other presidents in parliamentary republics, the President of Latvia has influence and authority rather than power.
Although the President is formally the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, signs treaties, represents Latvia abroad, and officially appoints ambassadors and other key officials, these powers are constitutionally exercised on the binding advice of the Prime Minister, who is politically responsible for them (Constitution of Latvia, Article 53). The President does, however, have personal discretion over the proposal of legislation to the Parliament, vetoing legislation, calling referendums on legislation, and nominating the Prime Minister. The President also has the right, in extremis, to call a referendum on the premature dissolution of Parliament: if the referendum is passed, Parliament is dissolved; but if the referendum fails, the President must resign.
Read more about this topic: Politics Of Latvia
Famous quotes containing the word president:
“Our age is pre-eminently the age of sympathy, as the eighteenth century was the age of reason. Our ideal men and women are they, whose sympathies have had the widest culture, whose aims do not end with self, whose philanthropy, though centrifugal, reaches around the globe.”
—Frances E. Willard 1839–1898, U.S. president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union 1879-1891, author, activist. The Woman’s Magazine, pp. 137-40 (January 1887)
“... [Washington] is always an entertaining spectacle. Look at it now. The present President has the name of Roosevelt, marked facial resemblance to Wilson, and no perceptible aversion, to say the least, to many of the policies of Bryan. The New Deal, which at times seems more like a pack of cards thrown helter skelter, some face up, some face down, and then snatched in a free-for-all by the players, than it does like a regular deal, is going on before our interested, if puzzled eyes.”
—Alice Roosevelt Longworth (1884–1980)
“I have come to the conclusion that the major part of the work of a President is to increase the gate receipts of expositions and fairs and by tourists into town.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)