Dombrovskis, who has been Saeima faction leader and prime ministerial candidate for the Saskaņa (Harmony) party and before that both Education and Science Minister and Economics Minister while a member of the Reform Party told LETA that an association named "Republika 2030" will soon be founded, which will serve as the first step to establishing a party in August this year with the intention of running in the Saeima elections next year.
The politician, who was formerly an economist and academic, said that the founders of the association believe that the current party line-up is a dead end, and characterized the new party's position as centrist. Its slogan will be "Latvia can be better and we can be better!".
The vision of the future political force is to make Latvia one of the most developed countries in the world with an income level similar to Sweden within 20 years.
"If we continue as we are now, we will not reach the level of Sweden even in 100 years. Therefore, we will invite those members of society whose vision is decisive, regardless of their ethnicity and ideology," the politician said.
Goals will include reform of public administration and the constitutional structure of the state, which would mean introducing a directly-elected president, and single-member electoral constituencies.
The association's founders include 11 people, some of whom also have political track records. In addition to Dombrovskis himself there is former Minister of Transport Anrijs Matīss (formerly of both the Unity and Harmony parties), former Director of the State Chancellery Elita Dreimane, and former Head of the State Data Inspectorate Signe Plūmiņa.
"A niche or a typical Latvian party says that we should vote for it only because it is the same as the voters. We only promise a vision - we want to be judged only on whether we do the work and fulfil the vision. We do not plan to fall into one of the niches, telling a certain section of society to vote or us, because we are the same as them. We invite you to judge us only on whether we keep our promises," Dombrovskis said of the party's stance.
Dombrovskis was elected to the 13th Saeima from the top of the Harmony party lists but last year resigned from both the party and its Saeima faction after failing to be elected party leader and lamenting the fact that despite regularly being the largest single party in Saeima, it has never formed part of a government coalition. He said his intention had been to "pull the party out of its red lines", but failed because the party did not want to change. "My conscience is clear because I tried to do it," he said.
