LATVIA'S ELECTIONS: MODERATE HARMONY CENTER BEATS HARDLINE

UNCLAS RIGA 000859 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PHUM SOCI LG SUBJECT: LATVIA'S ELECTIONS: MODERATE HARMONY CENTER BEATS HARDLINE PCTVL IN THE RACE FOR THE RUSSIAN VOTE REF: RIGA 00797 ¶1. Summary. One of the major upsets in Latvia's October 7 parliamentary elections was the poor showing of hard-line For Human Rights in a United Latvia (PCTVL) list versus its main rivals in the race for the votes of the Russian-speaking electorate, the moderate Harmony Center (SC) ticket. Even though polls conducted before the elections showed PCTVL comfortably in the lead, it barely squeaked into parliament with just 6 seats while SC grabbed seventeen. PCTVL's failure is largely attributed to a lackluster campaign, the lack of charismatic leaders and the waning popularity of radicalism. End summary. ¶2. The success of the four party bloc Harmony Center (SC) vis-a-vis the seemingly clear favorites of Latvia's Russian-speaking electorate For Human Rights in a United Latvia (PCTVL) was one of the Latvian parliamentary election surprises. Just weeks before election day, PCTVL was well ahead of SC in the polls, whereas the latter was barely hovering above the five-percent threshold needed to win seats in parliament. When the votes were counted, the final tally in terms of seats was 17-6 in favor of Harmony Center. ¶3. Most pundits here attribute the redistribution of the ethnic Russian vote in favor of the more moderate (at least in appearance) Harmony Center to several factors. Firstly, SC ran a much better campaign than PCTVL. The First Baltic Channel (PBK),a Russian-language cable TV channel watched by a predominant majority of local Russians here, fully supported SC's campaign (SC leader Nils Usakovs had worked as a journalist on PBK). Also, SC candidates actively campaigned in neighborhoods inhabited by their potential voters while PCTVL had become complacent, hoping that the majority of the Russian-speaking electorate would nevertheless vote for them. ¶4. Juris Sokolovskis, a PCTVL faction member in the Saeima (parliament),told embrep privately that his party was resting on its laurels thinking that their popular brand-name PCTVL alone would win them votes. Sokolovskis also acknowledged that SC had more money to spend on their campaign, and that they did it wisely. He remarked that SC's campaign in the run-up to the elections became more aggressive, and that SC had succeeded in persuading the Russian voters that Harmony Center (rather than the current PCTVL) had inherited the mantle of the highly-popular four-party PCTVL bloc which in the 2002 elections won 25 out of the 100 Saeima seats. PCTVL did have some media support as well, from the two Russian-language dailies, Vesti and Chas. However, even these papers' editors, who ran for the Saeima on the PCTVL ticket, failed to get elected. ¶5. Harmony Center also benefited from more charismatic leaders that PCTVL. SC's leader Nils Usakovs is young, energetic, and comes across as a European-oriented Russian. Also, the leader of the Socialist party and hard-line Communist chief in Soviet Latvia Alfreds Rubiks, who remains popular among a certain segment of elderly Russians, helped SC win a fair share of votes. The confrontational policies and radicalism of PCTVL might have scared away more moderate ethnic Russian voters as well. ¶6. Comment. In addition to the above noted reasons for SC's electoral success, it has been asserted that a fair number of ethnic Latvian voters cast their ballots for SC, thus contributing to the party's success. While some ethnic Latvians did vote for SC (as some ethnic Russians voted for the First Party),it is premature to conclude that the paradigm of voting along ethnic lines in Latvia has shifted. Moreover, the total number of seats the two pro-Russian parties won in 2006 (23) even dropped by two seats compared to the number won by the then grand PCTVL bloc in 2002. Both Harmony Center and PCTVL mainly focused on issues that concerned the local Russian-speaking residents, such as education, language and citizenship (reftel). End Comment. BAILEY