Former President Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga dismissed the website, saying it was merely a politically-motivated smear.

RIGA — A website promoting an upcoming book on what it claims to be the darker, lesser-known side of Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga’s past has made available new, original source material.

The site – www.vairasvirtuve.lv – is operated by journalist Lato Lapsa, who is currently penning a book about the former president that, in his words, will throw light on aspects of her past that were previously glossed over.

Vīķe-Freiberga has slammed the book, which has yet to be released, saying it was being paid for to discredit her before the upcoming national elections.

“I am convinced that this book is being ordered prior to the elections,” she was quoted earlier this month as saying.

The former president remains extremely popular and is arguably one of the only people in Latvia who could sway the results of the October elections simply by endorsing one or another party.

On Thursday the site published Vīķe-Freiberga’s doctoral thesis from 1965 and a report by what is described as a “red partisan” on how Western scientists, including the former president, cooperated with the Soviet Union over the course of three decades.

As is known, Vīķe-Freiberga, at the time a Canadian citizen, traveled frequently to Soviet Latvia to establish cultural contacts and conduct research. Given the level of KGB oversight of these visits, this has left her vulnerable to criticism. Many believe, however, it was important for foreign Latvians to maintain relations with “compatriots” behind the Iron Curtain to preserve a sense of unity and hope.

“Mr. Lapsa knows how to hint about something terrible that really isn’t that bad,” Kārlis Streips, a political commentator, told Baltic Reports.

Streips said he feels there is less altruism to Lapsa’s book project on Vīķe-Freiberga and more urge to make money. The book’s content, he said, will likely be a boon for the ex-president’s critics, particularly oligarchs such as Ventspils Mayor Aivars Lembergs and Latvians on the fringe right.

“Ultranationalists have always wanted to believe that she is a wicked freemason,” said Streips. It is unclear when the book will be released.

The title “Va(i)ras virtuve” is a rather stretched pun meaning either “power kitchen” or “Vaira’s kitchen,” itself an allusion to another scandalous book by Lapsa that published transcripts of tapped phone conversations between politicians, lawyers and judges in Latvia.

The site of the same name contains other scattered information, including email correspondence of Imants Freibergs, the ex-president’s spouse. Meanwhile, a website in defense of Vīķe-Freiberga — www.rokasnost.com — that castigates Lapsa was recently launched as well.

When asked, Vīķe-Freiberga said she would not meet with Lapsa. “I don’t have the slightest interest in meeting with a person who clearly stated that he is writing a book to cast me in a negative light,” she was quoted as saying.