A Conversation about Delna with Its New Chairperson, Lolita Cigane
Time : Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Place: Delna offices, Riga, Latvia
Participants: Lolita Cigane, Chairperson of Delna since March 2008
Inese Voika, founding Chairperson of Delna
Ints Silins, U.S. Ambassador to Latvia 1992-1995 and longtime Delna member
IS: Please explain briefly the key elements of your new program for Delna.
LC: I believe that Delna should become a broadly based organization with a wide membership. Members should be viewed as a very important asset for Delna, in the sense that they are both a source of competence and expertise and a way to establish a sustainable financial base for Delna. I believe that at this point in the development of Latvian society enough support could be garnered from individual persons as more and more people become aware and willing to participate in political decision-making and policy definition in general in Latvia. From my own conversations with different groups in society I have seen that there is a wish to be part of an organization that participates in advocacy efforts with a view to make Latvian society function better, implement principles of good governance, be more transparent in its decision-making and be more free of capture from different economic interests.
IS: But if that’s true, why does Delna have so few members now?
LC: So far the strategy of Delna’s management has not been to have a broad membership base. It has really been justified by the way that Delna has developed, because first of all it was always very important to keep the focus on the strategic goals of Delna and to make sure that Delna as an organization was not taken over by interests that might want to diffuse its influence. However, I think that at this point in time we have really progressed in the sense that awareness of Delna’s goals and Delna’s role is much wider in Latvian society and the support base is potentially much broader. And I believe that many of us have identified many potential members who would bring a lot to the organization both in their competence and their finances, and that it is just a matter of presenting Delna to society as an organization that is willing to attract this membership. And of course we need to have a strategy of how we want to develop and what we want to present to society.
IS: What do you think is the one most important thing you can do to reduce corruption in Latvia?
LC: Civil participation in decision-making. It is very important to send a message to our political decision-makers that society is not indifferent, that it is not all the same to us what they do. This is the single most important message that needs to be sent. Delna has seen that if it gets involved in an organized and expert way in dealing with different kinds of public policy making, it can make a difference. My belief is that it is very important to genuinely represent the civil interest and show that there is an active participation, because I think that the general indifference of Latvia as a former communist society is part of the explanation for the high levels of corruption that we now have.
IV: I also have a question. Yes, the perception of corruption is very high, so many people in Latvia still believe, you know, it’s like fighting with windmills, why engage in something like that? You can’t do anything, anyway.
LC: I think that in politics there are high tides and low tides. We are at present in kind of a low tide where the level of political discussion is fairly low and the apathy is fairly high, and of course it has to do with the present-day ruling coalition and the tides of political thinking that is represented by our politicians. But I think you also have to see this to a very large extent as a backlash for the very concrete anti-corruption activities and steps that have taken already. Of course anti-corruption efforts are something that deal with vested and entrenched interests, and these interests have a very strong potential to organize against anyone who threatens them.
IS: What do you say to people who argue that, after all, corruption is simply part of the cycle of society: it’s inevitable, it comes in phases, and in fact much of the wealth that is generated through corruption is put to good use. It creates great buildings and great works of art. So why fight it?
LC: Because the evil that it imposes on every society is much greater than the good works that it sometimes creates. And also I think that society as such should not be treated as one entity. There are different interests in society, and I think it is specifically true for Latvian society, which is very diverse. People do have different values and different value systems. My belief is that the proportion of society that does have democratic values and that does want to live in a democratic and transparent society where decision-making is more or less understandable to the broader population – it is growing, this part of society is growing, and it is important for them to actually see the way in which corruption harms their interests.
IV: Delna will be ten years old in August. Has Delna been of any use to society, and how do you see the next ten years?
LC: Has there been any use for Delna in ten years? Of course, and that brings me back to what I already stated, that Delna has been crucial in showing that Latvian society is not indifferent, that it is not apathetic, that it is actually an active, interested society that understands democratic values very well. And this has been a very important signal that has been sent to the politicians. And without that I believe Latvia would be much worse off.
IS: Why do you need to go to foreign donors to get support for Delna? Why isn’t there enough support in Latvia?
LC: Latvia as a former communist society has not fully developed the culture of donating or the culture of working for the public benefit. In Soviet times, anything that was public was supposed to be hated, anything that was defined in terms of common goals was hated despite any good effects that may have been intended. If people could cheat these schemes that were imposed on them, they were supposed to be the winners. So this communist legacy created a society where the values of working for public benefit, of donating, are not deeply enough rooted. It is good that many members of Latvian society easily understand the grievances and needs of destitute street children and so forth, but it is very hard for them perceive the real source of the problem – the bad politics that actually creates these negative phenomena.
IS: Thank you very much.