Supermarket cave-in costs Lativan PM his job

RIGA (AFP) - Latvian Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis, who resigned Wednesday over a deadly supermarket cave-in, was the Baltic state's longest serving premier.

Respected for his squeaky clean politics, the 42-year-old physicist stepped down just weeks before Latvia's eurozone entry in January -- a moment that was set to crown his tenure but that he may now only see in a caretaker capacity.

The centre-right technocrat took office for a third term in October 2011 after winning a parliamentary confidence vote for his three-party coalition following a snap election.

He was the longest serving premier since Latvia regained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Yet he only came to power in a March 2009 reshuffle when the country was, as he said, "on the brink of bankruptcy" amid a massive recession triggered by the global financial crisis.

His entry into office amid a breakneck economic crisis was dubbed political suicide by some commentators, and it was widely expected that the mild-mannered and bespectacled Dombrovskis would only last a matter of weeks in the hotseat.

But he developed a reputation as a safe pair of hands and, after years of sleazy politics, Latvians were impressed that he was clearly not in the game for his own enrichment.

After years of colourful but corrupt leaders, the prospect of a relatively uncharismatic man who happened to be good at organisation and chairing meetings came as a pleasant change to Latvians.

Dombrovskis won international plaudits for tackling Latvia's economic crisis, steering it through an austerity drive to the top of the European Union's growth charts.