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Vircavs also confirmed to LETA that the mayor suspended him from office today but said that the reason for his suspension was not clear to him.

"The argumentation was based on some applications to the city council's ethnics commission," Vircavs said, adding that he had no idea what these applications were about. He said that to him Burovs' decision seemed more like personal retribution for raising objections to some of the mayor's activities.

"The way he deals with some issues is very far from lawfulness. He probably did not like my objections, so he's trying to find means of getting rid of me," Vircavs said.

Janis Belkovskis, head of the municipal construction authority's construction control department, has been appointed acting head of the Riga Construction Board.

Disagreements between Burovs and Vircavs drew media attention at the end of last year when Vircavs sent the city council a letter in which he claimed that the Riga mayor was exerting political pressure on him, forcing him to allow to put the Z-Towers high-rises into operations despite the development project’s non-compliance with construction requirements.