Latvian Parliament elects first openly gay president of a Baltic nation
Latvian lawmakers on Wednesday picked the country’s long-serving and popular foreign minister, a strong backer of Ukraine, as its new head of state in a tight vote. The 100-seat Saeima legislature elected Edgars Rinkevics, the country’s top diplomat since 2011, as president to serve for a four-year term. He received 52 votes, one vote more than required to win. Incumbent Egils Levits, Latvia’s head of state since 2019, didn’t seek reelection. Rinkevics, who announced in 2014 that he is “proudly” homosexual, will be the first openly gay president in the Baltic nations — all former Soviet republics where attitudes to […]