Lativa legislative election - 4 October 2014

[Famous Mortimer]

Parties currently in parliament:

Concord Centre: Social democratic, moderate Russian party led by Riga Mayor Nils Ušakovs. I say it's a moderate Russian party because Ušakovs supports NATO membership and opposed the Russian annexation of Ukraine. It was the largest party after the last election but all other parties refused to work with it, partially because it's Russian, partially because all the other parties are conservative.

Reform Party: Formerly called Zatlers' Reform Party. A conservative anti-corruption party founded by former President Valdis Zatlers. It was the second largest party after the last election but following Zatlers surprise defeat in his presidential re-election bid, opted to give the PM post to a smaller party. Favors the status quo on the Russian question.

Unity: Conservative party led by current PM Laimdota Straujuma. Formed by the merger of several other conservative parties, mainly the New Era party and its allies. Favors the status quo on the Russian question.

National Alliance: Nationalist party, the kind of which Putin would probably bluntly describe as Nazis. Favors kicking out the Russians, making it harder to gain citizenship.

Union of Greens and Farmers: As the name suggests a coalition of an agrarian party and Latvia's green party. Both groups are, however, fairly conservative. Interestingly, this party provided both the world's first Green Prime Minister and the world's first Green President in former PM Indulis Emsis and current President Andris Bērziņš. It favors the status quo on the Russian issue.

Parties outside parliament:

Latvian Russian Union: The more radical Russian party. It used to be called For Human Rights in a United Latvia. Back then it was second largest party in the country and somewhat more moderate. Then Harmony Centre broke away leaving the radical rump behind. It opposes NATO membership and supported the annexation of Crimea.

For Latvia from the Heart: New conservative party headed by former Auditor General  Inguna Silver. Apparently it was doing very well in the polls for a little while but crashed after receiving some dubious donations.

United for Latvia: New centrist party headed by former Transportation Minister Ainārs Šlesers, formerly of the Latvian Way party, which grew out of Latvia's initial anti-Communist movement.

For Latvia's Development: New conservative party headed by former Prime Minister Einars Repše, whose old New Era party merged into Unity. This party will be helped by the fact that it will be listed first on the ballot.

The New Conservatives: New conservative party led by former Justice Minster Jānis Bordāns, who broke away from the National Alliance.

[Famous Mortimer]

Wikipedia doesn't list any polls.

I looked but all I could find is this article from March, it only reports on the top 3 parties though:

http://en.ria.ru/russia/20130303/179795894/Pro-Russian-Party-Tops-Latvian-Opinion-Poll.html

Concord Centre 26
Unity 14.3
Greens and Farmers Union 9.3

[Famous Mortimer]

Another major division in Latvian politics is big business. As odd as it would seem for a country so right-wing, there's a lot of talk about "oligarchs."

Unity is anti-oligarch. The Reform Party is explicitly anti-oligarch.

The Greens and Farmers Union is seen as an oligarch party.

United for Latvia is probably an oligarch party as it replaces the Latvian Way.

For Latvia From the Heart, as I said earlier, basically collapsed when people found out how much money it was getting from various wealthy businessmen.

For a brief period before the global recession, it looked like Latvia was developing a 2 party system with the New Era party (now Unity) as the anti-oligarch conservative party and the People's Party as the pro-oligarch conservative party. The global recession did hit though. The People's Party was in power at the time and they were subsequently totally wiped out of parliament.

[Famous Mortimer]

and here's the EU results, which, as Georg said, will probably look nothing like the parliamentary results:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament_election,_2014_%28Latvia%29

Unity 46% (4 seats)
National Alliance 14% (1 seat)
Social Democratic Party "Concord" 13% (1 seat)
Greens and Farmers Union 8% (1 seat)
Latvian Russian Union 6% (1 seat)

National Alliance probably did so well because they were running as Eurosceptics, they have since affiliated with the Tory's bloc.

The Concord Centre didn't run. Instead, its two competent parties ran separately. As you can see, the PES affiliated Social Democratic Party "Concord" (formerly the National Concord Party) still did pretty well. The basically communist Socialist Party of Latvia was a non-factor though.

The one member of the Greens and Farmers elected was a Farmer who sits with the UKIP group now.

The Latvian Russian Union candidate sits with the Greens though. More for the European Free Alliance than the Greens themselves though. Interestingly, the Latvian Russian Union MEP is banned from holding a seat in parliament because of her post-independence affiliation with the Communist Party. The leader of the Socialist Party of Latvia was subject to the same ban. Such bans are, however, not allowed for the EU parliament.

[Famous Mortimer]

Reading more about the United for Latvia party.

It's got some strange bedfellows.

It includes two former Prime Ministers. Aigars Kalvītis of the conservative People's Party was Prime Minister from 2004 to 2007. He resigned in a corruption scandal and was succeeded by the leader of his coalition party, Latvian Way.

That guy was Ivars Godmanis. Godmanis had also previously been Latvia's first post-Communist Prime Minister. He originally represented the Popular Front of Latvia, which was basically Latvia's Solidarity but supported by the pro-perestroika wing of the Communist Party. Then later joined Latvian Way, which included a lot of other former Popular Front people.

Their alliance isn't so weird. The People's Party and Latvian Way actually ran in an alliance in 2010 which won no seats. The People's Party disbanded before the 2011 election rather than pay its campaign. Latvian Way followed suit after they failed to win any seas running on their own.

Now what is weird though, a couple of other politicians in United for Latvia:

Jānis Straume, a former speaker of Parliament and a former leader of For Fatherland and Freedom/LNNK (the predecessor of the National Alliance).

Jānis Jurkāns, Foreign Minister during Godmanis Popular Front government in the early 90s. He later founded the National Concord Party, which became and remains the core component of the Concord Center alliance.

It's got former leaders of the National Alliance and the Concord Centre in one party! The leader of the anti-Russian party and the leader of the Russian party!

[politicus]

Its interesting that Nils Ušakovs despite his Russian heritage chooses to write his name in the Latvianized form and not as Ushakov and that he has a Latvian first name, so there is likely some non-Russian family history as well. Also educated in Denmark and with strong Scandinavian ties.

His party isn't an ethnic Russian party as such, its just the choice of the majority of Russian speakers and he has broad support from both communities as Mayor of Riga.

Besides Russian parties it also has roots in the National Harmony Party, which was the moderate (=non-chauvenistic) wing of ther Popular Front of Latvia, the old independence movement.

Oligarch supported conservative "Greens" are a bit of a joke.

[ObserverIE]

Its interesting that Nils Ušakovs despite his Russian heritage chooses to write his name in the Latvianized form and not as Ushakov and that he has a Latvian first name, so there is likely some non-Russian family history as well. Also educated in Denmark and with strong Scandinavian ties.

Nil is a Russian first name as well.

To the best of my knowledge, Latvian officialdom Latvianises all first names and surnames of citizens or holders of Latvian travel documents, so Sergey Petrov becomes Sergejs Petrovs whether he likes it or not. Even Tatyana Zhdanok is referred to as Tatjana Ždanoka.

Although Latgale is full of Latvian speakers with Russian or Polish last names (Gorbunovs, Dombrovskis) in any case. (The Latvian diaspora in Ireland tends to be dominated by Russian Latvians or Latgalians.)

[FredLindq]

http://www.latvianfacts.lv/portals/pētījumi/documents/1

Implies:
Harmony 30% +2
Unity 27% +8
Greens and Farmers 17% +5
National Alliance 10% -4
No Sirds 6% +6
Reform party 0 -21

So another centre right guvernment. Maybe witout Greens and Farmers if Unity can form a conservative coalitions with National alliance and No Sirds. But just Maybe.

[Famous Mortimer]

By the way: Why did Zatlers not want to become PM (especially as some kind of revanche)?

Might have been for continuity's sake. Since the result was allowing the incumbent Unity Prime Minister to continue in office.

Also, Latvia just has a history of small parties providing PMs even when they have bigger coalition partners (Godmanis' second term, the Green Farmer guy).

[Famous Mortimer]

http://www.latvianfacts.lv/portals/pētījumi/documents/1

Implies:
Harmony 30% +2
Unity 27% +8
Greens and Farmers 17% +5
National Alliance 10% -4
No Sirds 6% +6
Reform party 0 -21

So another centre right guvernment. Maybe witout Greens and Farmers if Unity can form a conservative coalitions with National alliance and No Sirds. But just Maybe.

No Sirds is For Latvia from the Heart.

[Famous Mortimer]

There was a debate last night. 6 parties were included: Unity, Harmony, For Latvia from the Heart, Greens and Farmers Union, National Alliance, and the Regional Alliance.

[njwes]

There was a debate last night. 6 parties were included: Unity, Harmony, For Latvia from the Heart, Greens and Farmers Union, National Alliance, and the Regional Alliance.

Anyone stand out as particularly competent or embarrass themselves?

[FredLindq]

New poll from: http://www.latvianfacts.lv/portals/pētījumi/documents/1

Implies:
Harmony 33% +5
Unity 28% +9
Greens and Farmers 13% +1
National Alliance 9% -5
No Sirds 7% +7
Regional Allaince 2% +2
Reform party 0 -21


So another centre right guvernment. Again maybe without Greens and Farmers if Unity can form a conservative coalitions with National alliance and No Sirds. But just Maybe.

[njwes]

I'm surprised that the events of this year haven't given National Alliance a boost.

[politicus]

I'm surprised that the events of this year haven't given National Alliance a boost.

Well, those events have clearly shown the dangers of chauvinistic anti-Russian nationalism, which would provide an easy excuse for Russian interference. Besides its likely a party that has maxed out its potential already.

[Famous Mortimer]

They tried to pass a law banning people with Russian passports from entering the country. Unity was split. The National Alliance voted unanimously for it. The Reform Party voted unanimously against. The Greens and Farmers were split. Of course Harmony was against. It failed.

[Famous Mortimer]

No idea.

I think the Reform Party vote is interesting though. Especially in light of the terrible polling.

Is their soft line on Russians the reason for their decline or was it something else and now they're trying to appeal to Russians to get some extra votes?

[swl]

I don't know anything about Latvia, what do you think of that? :

[politicus]

Seems about right.

[Famous Mortimer]

Both the Reuters and the Wall Street Journal ran stories about the Latvian elections where they described For Latvia From the Heart as "left-wing." Both stories included numerous other mistakes, including call Harmony "pro-Putin" so that should be taken with a grain of salt. Still, odd if they both made the same mistake.

[politicus]

Polls closing in one hour at 19.00 local time (17.00 GMT).

[Hash]

Turnout seems to be on par with 2011 (41.2% at 16h), again with the predominantly Russian region of Latgale trailing with only 35% turnout.

[politicus]

LETA exit poll:

Unity 23.8% (25)
Harmony 21.6% (23)
Greens/Farmers Union 19.4% (19)
All For Latvia-For Fatherland and Freedom/LNNK (National Alliance) 18.5% (19)
Alliance of Latvia's Regions 6% (7)
For Latvia from the Heart 5.4% (7)

Non of the other parties have cleared the 5% threshold.

Russian Union of Latvia 1,3%
United for Latvia 1,1%
For Latvia's Development 0,8%
New Conservative Party 0,7%
Others 0,4%

"Against all" (=blank, or registered but did not vote) 1,0%.

6,418 voters were interviewed for the exit poll, of which 1,393 refused to reveal which party they had voted for.

Respondents were interviewed at random after they exited a polling station. Interviews were conducted at 70+ polling stations in cities and rural areas.

[politicus]

According to the exit poll results, most voters in Riga and Latgale voted for Harmony, Vidzeme and Zemgale for Unity, Kurzeme for Greens/Farmers.

Turnout is measured to 55%+ (which is not bad in the current situation - worse was expected).

[politicus]

Turnout was 890.300 = 57.4%, but interestingly enough 47,0% in primarily Russophone Latgale, which is actually higher than expected (still the lowest, obviously) and 69,7% in Riga (highest).

Vidzeme 63,0%, Kurzeme 58,4% and Zemgale 56,5%.

It is still the lowest turnout since the restoration of independence.

EDIT: Turnout was later put at a higher number: 912.660 = 58.8%