Political Demonstrations

Take strange and unusual forms in Latvia. In 2007 an umbrella protest brought down a prime minister. Yesterday four hundred Russian speakers gathered in the southern city of Daugavpils
to throw shoes at a poster of the parliament building. A group calling themselves the Penguin Revolution have recently staged spontaneous strolling actions around the Old Town, while best selling t-shirts bear the slogans nasing spesal and What my answer will be, I cannot say, lampooning an interview the finance minister gave to Bloomberg TV.



Contempt for elected politicians is one of those values that binds old and new Europe together, but cynicism runs deeper in the new democracies - perhaps because they expected more.