Political fragmentation and war-torn Ukraine punctuate Latvian parliamentary elections

MADRID, 1 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) -

Latvia is holding Parliament elections this Saturday (the Saeima) with the war in Ukraine and the fracture of national politics as dominant and closely related issues in this Baltic State, characterized by the existence of a Russian-speaking minority whose activities have been significantly reduced in the country since the beginning of the conflict for the support granted by the Latvian authorities, as a NATO member country, to the Ukrainian national defense.

These restrictions have shaped the political landscape in recent months. According to a recent report by the Institute for Foreign Policy Studies (FPRI), pro-Moscow minority groups such as the Russian Latvian Union or strongly identitarian organizations such as the Latvian Association for the Regions have gained support while large national parties Previously pro-Russian like Armonía, they have been weakened by being forced to position themselves against the Kremlin.

Polls indicate Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins' New Unity party, which heads the current four-party centre-right minority coalition, will lead the polls but with only a projected 13-20 percent of the vote. Karins is also likely to remain in office, as polls show him as the favorite in the almost certain subsequent negotiations for a new government.

According to a poll by the Latvian public broadcaster LSM, the Union of Greens and Farmers could come in second with 7.8 percent of the vote, followed by the center-right National Alliance, a member of the current coalition that Karins leads, just a tenth behind. Armonía, meanwhile, could be left without parliamentary representation.

All this occurs in a scenario of transformation in which the Russian minority -- a quarter of the population, that is, almost two million people -- has lamented that its public voice is being strangled. Broadcasts of Russian channels have been suspended while the government has put forward plans to switch all education to Latvian and eliminate instruction in Russian.

This has had repercussions in the reopening of the wounds of a disputed past. Members of the ethnic Latvian majority have for decades denounced the country's 1940 incorporation into the Soviet Union as an illegal annexation, while Russian-speakers have argued that it was voluntary.

The first results of the elections will be announced a few hours after the polls close at 8:00 p.m. local time, but it should be stressed that the first candidate to form a government does not always belong to the party with the most votes. It is up to the country's president, Egils Levits, to designate whoever he considers most qualified to lead the negotiations.

"Latvia", Levits assured Thursday in his final speech before the elections, "needs a future Saeima and a government that has experience and foresight, power and pragmatism, and whose priority is the security of Latvia, as well as the development of our Armed Forces, the establishment of a national defense service and close cooperation within NATO".

The Latvian president stressed that the war in Ukraine should serve to reaffirm the country's national identity. "I do not believe in the parties and politicians who for decades have been unable to recognize and condemn the (Soviet) occupation of Latvia," he said in the speech, picked up by LSM, "or who have, or still have, difficulties in accepting that the Latvian language is our only official language.