RIGA, April 12 (LETA) - It is important to maintain the course taken in previous years in Riga after the municipal elections, Riga Mayor Vilnis Kirsis (New Unity) told LETA in an interview.

He believes that the main battle of the elections will be between two political blocs. One of them is Ainars Slesers' Latvia First, Harmony, Stability and Sovereign Power, and the other is the current coalition plus the Progressives.

"If our bloc gets a majority, it will be a victory, if there is a minority and Slesers gets a majority, it will be a loss," said Kirsis.

For him, it does not matter who gets more or less from the other bloc. Even if New Unity gets fewer votes, but the bloc he mentioned wins overall, Riga's course will be maintained and that is the most important thing.

Kirsis admitted that, after becoming mayor after the resignation of his predecessor Martins Stakis (Progressives), he would have much preferred to form a coalition with the Progressives.

"I also did everything to have them there. I probably could have just knelt down and prayed for the maximum to be done. Well, they didn't come into the coalition," Kirsis admitted. So the choice was between two options - either extraordinary elections or work in the current coalition, including with Honor to Serve Riga, which Kirsis had called "bandits" before the emergency Riga City Council elections.

However, Kirsis does not see the possibility of working in the same coalition with Slesers.

"Slesers is part of the problem, not part of the solution. Although he tells us what a master he is and how he will put everything in order. But he has been here before - he, Roslikovs, Harmony and, if not the leaders personally, then their parties. What Slesers is saying now, what investments they will bring here... He has not brought any investments in his time. He is saying how he will repair the infrastructure here. He has not repaired any infrastructure in his time - not a bridge, not a street, not a tram line. He has in fact shown that he is no one who can administer a city," said Kirsis.

He pointed out that the problems of the Slesers era are still being solved in Riga.

"He brought [ Aleksandrs] Brandavs, a former board member of Rigas Karte, into the Riga City Council. We are being told here - it is nothing anymore, it is an old thing. Municipal transportation company Rigas Satiksme is still in litigation and has problems, and two years ago the State Revenue Service imposed a EUR 13 million surcharge on all of Brandavs' schemes. Slesers is not someone who can administer a city, nor we are on the same ideological footing with him," said Kirsis.