He's a fucking embarrassment, but somehow maintains his position in Rīga by bribing old people with public transport tickets and also being the representative of the "russian" party (Rīga has close to a 50% Russian population). No matter that the city of Rīga has greater debt than the country, among other things.
That's kinda normal for post soviet countries. Due to previously centralized power in capitol city, people migrate to the capitol leaving rest of the country in poor state. But capitol isn't actually producing any goods and therefore it spend more than it can earn. It's a vicious circle. Same is in here, Belgrade has higher debt than rest of the country combined. But life outside Belgrade is poor and young people migrate to capitol where they can hardly find a job and even if they find it, it is usually something that doesn't benefit country. No matter what people say, without actual production of goods there is no economical growth. That is why USA have so many troubles, they "outsourced" production to China and that is hurting their economy. There has to be balance between production and selling services. If majority of people aren't producing, economy suffers.Only city-states like Luxembourg can live like that. More people makes it less viable economic strategy.
Offtopic aside, didn't know about this guy
Alexei Navalny. On the paper, seems like the solution for this conflict and long term solution for Russia. Unless he is something else, which can be devastating for Russia.
Poll