Pro-Western government wins Latvia elections

BRUSSELS - Latvia’s top Russia-friendly party scored worse than in previous elections and is likely to stay out of government.

The left-wing party, Saskanas Centrs, led by Riga mayor Nils Usakovs, got 23 percent of votes on Saturday (4 October), maintaining its status as the biggest faction in parliament, but doing 5 percent worse than in 2011.

By contrast, the right-wing and centrist parties in the ruling coalition - NA, Vienotiba, and ZZS - increased their share of seats by 14 percent.

Turnout reached 70 percent in the Riga area, and was lowest in Latgale, a majority Russian-speaking region, on 47 percent.

But some 280,000 Russian-origin Latvians who do not hold citizenship did not get a chance to cast their ballots.

Usakovs, as in previous elections, told press he should get a chance to form a new government.

But the Latvian president, Andris Berzins, indicated on national radio on Monday that he will give the mandate to those parties which can realistically form a ruling coalition.

Laimdota Straujuma i, the ZZS’ current prime minister, on Sunday also rejected Usakovs’ overtures to create a German-style right-left bloc. “I don’t think there should be a rainbow government if there is an opportunity to continue to work in the [current] coalition”, she said on TV.

The Latvian elections took place in the shadow of the Russia-Ukraine war.

Analysts note that Usakovs, whose party has formal links with Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party, damaged his campaign by visiting Moscow and saying that Putin is “the best thing possible right now” for Russia.

But Straujuma, who helped lead Latvia from an economic crisis back to growth and who is a strong advocate of Nato and of EU sanctions on Russia, underlined the need to protect Latvian security.

"This election is different because of what is going on in Ukraine … the situation is escalating there again and people are worried what will happen because we have a border with Russia”, she noted while casting her ballot.

The Ukraine war has jangled nerves in the Baltic states who host large Russian minorities after Putin vowed to protect the rights of ethnic Russians abroad.

Russia in the run-up to the Latvian election also kidnapped an Estonian intelligence officer and snatched a Lithuanian fishing boat.

One of its senior diplomats, Konstantin Dolgov, also gave a speech in Riga in which he claimed, falsely, that the government plans to “liquidate” Russian-language schools in a move that would have “far-reaching, unfortunate consequences”.

Some ethnic Russian families have lived in Latvia for decades, but hundreds of thousands of them were shipped in by Stalin after World War II, creating antagonism.

Many older Russian speakers cannot get a Latvian passport because they find it hard to pass a Latvian language test. But their non-citizen status also has benefits, letting them go in and out of Russia without the need for a visa.

Andis Kudors, a Latvian academic who specialises in Russian soft power, recently told EUobserver there is no support for autonomy or for joining Russia even in Russia-majority regions such as Latgale because economic conditions in Latvia are better than in Russia.

Even more radical pro-Russia politicians, such as Miroslav Mitrofanov - who backed Russia’s annexation of Crimea but whose party failed to make the 5 percent threshold in Latvia - agrees.

“We feel that we are Latvians, even if in our native language and culture we feel that we are Russians”, he told this website.

Meanwhile, Schengen Property, an elite real estate firm in Latvia, has published data saying that Russians are flocking to Latvia where they can better protect their wealth.

It noted that demand for Latvian residency under an investor programme is up 70 percent on last year, with Russians accounting for 9,650 out of the 13,800 applicants.