RIGA (AFP) -- A Latvian government minister has quit after failing to weather a storm over the use of state funds to pay for her birthday party, a spokeswoman announced.

Ina Gudele, the Baltic state's minister for e-government, handed over the letter of resignation to Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis, said Gudele's spokeswoman Inese Aunina.
""It was a logical step for her,"" Aunina told AFP.
""Nothing else was possible for her but to step down,"" she added.
Gudele has been in the spotlight since last week, when Latvian media first reported that her 43rd birthday party on June 12, 2007 had been paid for from public coffers.
According to Aunina, 790 lats (1,144 euros, 1,801 dollars) were spent on the party, a sum Gudele ""paid back as soon as the press began talking about it"".
Latvian media have been delighting in the minutest of details of the party, which allegedly took place under the cover of a staff seminar, and have notably described how participants enjoyed a lavish strawberry cake.
""It was an hour-long, small gathering. The minister has a family, and she doesn't want any more attention from the press,"" Aunina said.
Gudele came under extra fire for claiming that she did not personally organize the event, although an invitation had been sent from her e-mail address.
She has told Latvian media that she was not aware of the reason for the party, and did not even take part, saying she was attending a cabinet meeting which ran late.
The minister, whose brief was to boost Internet-based services including electronic voting, had already asked Godmanis to let her go last week but the premier had refused.