In Latvia, Upstart Populist Parties Gain Ground Among Russian Speakers

Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins faces the task of forming a coalition in the Saeima following electoral gains by populist parties appealing to ethnic Russians (Wikimedia Commons)

Russian-speaking Latvians delivered a crushing blow to the social-democratic Harmony party on October 1, booting the once-dominant party out of Latvia’s parliament. As Harmony collapsed, two populist parties, “For Stability!” (S!) and “Latvia in First Place” (LPV), entered the parliament  drawing support on platforms opposed to vaccine mandates and Latvian-only education.

Harmony, which grew to be the largest party in Latvia in 2011, combines advocacy for center-left economic positions with Russian minority interest policies, including preserving legal status for the Russian language in Latvia. Despite its former size and dominant position among Russophone Latvians, who make up around a quarter of the country’s population, the party’s links with Russia dogged their attempts to gain power. The party had an official relationship with the United Russia party until 2017, which led other parties to shun Harmony from coalitions. The party, however, ended this relationship as part of a general effort to integrate into mainstream Latvian politics.

Despite ending official ties with Russia, continued scandals -- including the arrest of a Harmony Saeima member for espionage and the party’s decision to skip a vote to declare Russia a terrorist state -- prevented the party’s mainstreaming. Harmony’s woes multiplied after the party’s Mayor of Riga, Nils Usakovs, was removed for corruption after a spending scandal. Prominent members of the party, including both Saeima members and municipal officials, left Harmony leaving it weakened prior to its electoral disaster. 

As Harmony struggled, the two new populist parties surged. S! won 11 seats in the 100-member Saeima, and LPV won nine.

The larger of the parties, “For Stability!” was founded in 2020 by Aleksejs Rosilkovs, a member of the Riga City Council, who had been expelled from Harmony in 2019. S! soon gained notoriety advocating against vaccine mandates and for Russian speakers’ interests. The party’s platform mixes Euroscepticism with traditional concerns of the Russian minority. They support “withdrawal from the suffocating” European Union, undoing the language reform law which phased Russian out of Latvian schools, and large cuts to Latvian government departments. 

S! won the heavily-Russian Latgale and Russian-majority neighborhoods of Riga, the traditional geographic base of Harmony. Despite this success, the party has attracted official scrutiny, with candidates facing accusations of disloyalty and lying to the Latvian electoral commission.

The smaller of the parties, “Latvia in First Place,” was founded in 2021 and is led by Ainars Slesers. Slesers has been active in Latvian politics since the 1990s. His long career is marked by allegations of corruption, including claims that Slesers received bribes from the Russian government. Despite Slesers’ alleged links to the Russian government, LPV’s platform calls for continued cooperation with NATO and the EU. 

LPV otherwise embraces populist, socially-conservative appeals. Similar to S!, LPV gained notoriety leading anti-vaccine protests in Riga in 2021. The party’s platform suggests the “natural family” should be enshrined in the Latvian constitution, and proposes a host of economically liberal, small-government policies meant to stimulate growth. The party also suggests that Latvian schools should teach students to be fluent in four languages, a rejection of Latvian-only education proposals. 

This combination of conservatism and pro-growth policies has garnered support from younger Russian-speakers, with pre-election surveys suggesting that LPV would capture 20 percent of their vote. LPV performed particularly well in Riga, where they placed third behind S!.

Despite the rapid growth of the two parties, they are likely to be excluded from the next government. Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins, tapped to form a new coalition government, intends to only cooperate with parties “whose geopolitical course includes Latvia’s remainder in the EU and NATO.”