Latvia

Date range: 1990-2020
Latvia is generally considered a country where populist rhetoric (particularly in the form of anti-corruption politics) is somewhat ubiquitous, including in the main parties, making it a very difficult case. Several authors have suggested that the master cleavages of Latvian politics have been ethno-linguistic (Latvian speakers and Russian speakers) and, within the ethnic Latvian side of that cleavage, corruption (anti-corruption vs “oligargic” parties) (Auers 2013, 86). Most populist parties have been short-lived entrants within the anti-corruption side of the Latvian bloc, although the far-right National Alliance has recently emerged on Latvian ethno-centric lines. Latvia’s politics has also been generally been very volatile, with a succession of new parties winning big in post-communist elections. There are quite a few difficult calls below, and some parties that arguably could be featured that are currently not.

Case notes

People’s Movement for Latvia (Seigerists’ Party)

People’s Movement for Latvia (Tautas Kustība Latvijai, TKL) was founded in 1994 to contest in the 1995 election. As its semi-formal nickname – Seigerists’ Party – suggests, it was the vehicle of its founder, controversial German-Latvian businessman and former LNNK MP Joaachim Siegerists, “a demagogic populist with a talent for self-advertisement” (Davies and Ozolins 1996, 126). Siegerists, born in Germany, only discovered his Latvian heritage in 1992, at which point he decided to become engaged in the Latvian political scene without even speaking the Latvian language fluently (Nissinen 1999, 137). Despite this, TKL exceeded expectations to win 15% in 1995, before crashing to 1.73 in 1998.

Like the contemporaneous DPS, the TKL captured the generally frustrated mood of the Latvian electorate with a discourse harshly critical of the political establishment (Pabriks and Štokenberga 2006, 59). Nissinen claims that his rhetoric accused any political rival of being a “communist”, and tended not to discriminate among members of the political establishment (he suggested that 80% of Latvian politicians were “bandits”) (Nissinen 1999, 139). The country’s woes had not improved, he claimed, because the old communist elite (the “devil”) were still in power (Nissinen 1999, 139) (OTH_POLCLASS = 3).

While the party was certainly nationalist, the role of ethnocentrism in Siegerists party is difficult to pin down. He had a chequered history of association with far right organisations in Germany, where he was accused of race hatred offences (Davies and Ozolins 1996, 126). He was also on record making a number of anti-Roma statements, and Učeň categorises the party xenophobic (although without explanation) (Učeň 2007, 52). Nonetheless, Nissinen convincingly argues that there was not a lot of this in his 1995 platform, even if the media accused of being far-right (Nissinen 1999, 136–40). We have coded him 2 on OTH_ETHNIC. There is no evidence for anything registering on the OTH_IMMIGRANT variable. With a generally pro-market neoliberal platform (Nissinen 1999, 136), the party did not antagonise big business or the wealthy as an “other” (OTH_ECONOMIC = 1). Likewise, according to Nissinen Siegerists was harshly critical of Russia in his 1993 election, but shifted sharply to support greater ties with Russia by 1995 (OTH_FOREIGN = 1)

The party has been called “non-ideological” (Balcere 2013, 95), but was clearly right-wing on both economic policy and nationalist rhetoric (Müller-Rommel and Nørgaard 2001, 31) (LRPOSITION = R). The party is generally seen to be a vehicle for Siegerists’ personality – to the extent that it is often called “Seigerists’ Party” (Davies and Ozolins 1996, 126; see also Pettai and Kreuzer 1998, 156; Nissinen 1999, 136) (CHARISMA = 3). Nissinen goes as far as calling it a “personality cult” due to the synonymy between leader and party (Nissinen 1999, 136). Aside from his flamboyant and controversial personality, his very conventional campaign methods (handing out bananas to would-be voters, for example) received considerable press attention. Učeň categorises the party as “authoritarian” (Učeň 2007, 52), but other than the fact that Seigerists had a generally domineering personality, we have not see any reason to label the party greater than 1 for LIBDEMNORMS. Niether Siegerists nor his party served in government (INSIDER = 1)

Democratic Party Saimnieks

Democratic Party Saimnieks (“Master”, DPS) were a merger of the smaller “Saimnieks” local party from Riga and the Democratic Centre party, who united to contest the 1995 elections (Ikstens 2003, 5). It had ties to both business elites and liberal communists from the old regime (Nissinen 1999, 146). The party achieved a breakout 15% in those elections and went on to govern in a coalition before collapsing in the subsequent 1998 elections.

The party is almost universally described as populist in the literature (see Učeň 2007, 59; Balcere 2013, 95). It campaigned in 1995 on a vaguely anti-corruption, and anti-establishment platform in its breakout 1995 election (Auers 2013, 102), appealing to those who had lost out in the market transitions (Auers and Kasekamp 2013, 239) and victims of a recent major banking collapse (Pettai and Kreuzer 1998, 156). There is not a lot available detailing the nature of the party’s actual populist rhetoric and allegations in 1995, and Nissinen, whose text is most detailed, seems to think that the party’s populism was significantly lighter than the likes of the Seigerists’(Nissinen 1999). Hence we have coded it 2 for OTH_POLCLASS.

The party has been variously called centre-right (Auers and Kasekamp 2013, 88; Nakai 2014, 68), centrist (Stanley 2017, 149; Balcere 2013, 95), and centre left (Nissinen 1999, 146; Galbreath 2006, 387; Dreifelds 1995, 89). We have placed its LR_POSITION coding at C, but this could be contested. According to Auers & Kasekamp, corrupt businessmen were a target of the party’s populism (Auers and Kasekamp 2013, 239), although Nissinen claims that the party had significant links with the business class (particularly Russian businesses) (Nissinen 1999, 147; see also Nakai 2014, 68). We have left the OTH_ECONOMIC coding at 2. We have seen no evidence to register the party on the OTH_ETHNIC, OTH_FOREIGN or OTH_IMMIGRANTS variables (all = 1).

The party is not discussed in generally leader-centric terms (CHARISMA = 1), or in any way that threatened the democratic order (LIBDEMNORMS = 1). As the party was in a governing coalition from 1995, it is labelled 2 on INSIDER in the subsequent 1998 election.

New Era

New Era (Jaunais Laiks, JL) was formed in 2001 by the former Central Bank Governor Einārs Repše to compete in the 2002 election. Its anti-corruption rhetoric proved highly successful, with the party winning those elections and Einārs Repše becoming Prime Minister for a short period before falling out with coalition partners. The party continued surprisingly well in the next elections without him. It is often seen in similar terms as the contemporaneous Res Publica party in neighbouring Estonia.

Repše, a popular public figure at the time, claimed to be shocked by the rates of corruption and mismanagement in the political system (Auers 2002, 106; 2018, 352), and accused the country’s incumbent elites of betraying the national interests (Učeň 2007, 59; Stanley 2017, 150; Balcere 2016). As its name suggests, it sold the electorate an idea of “new politics” in which the slate would be wiped clean and a new generation brought in (Sikk 2009, 7) (OTH_POLCLASS = 3). According to Učeň (Učeň 2007, 59–60), the party maintained this anti-political establishment stance even after forming government.

The party is usually considered centre-right (Učeň 2007, 59; Nakai 2014, 66) and neo-liberal (Sikk 2006, 133), or occasionally centrist (Auers and Kasekamp 2013, 239). We have labelled it CR on LRPOSITION. In accordance with its opposition to corruption, the party styled itself as hostile to “oligarchs” (Auers 2013, 104; Nakai 2014, 70) – a term which in Latvia refers to wealthy politicians rather than just wealthy citizens (see Auers 2013, 103). Due to this precise meaning it could be argued that the party should be labelled 1 on OTH_ECONOMIC – we have left it at 2 for now. The literature makes no reference to any stances against OTH_ETHNIC, OTH_IMMIGRANTS, OTH_FOREIGN or OTH_MILITARY (all = 1).

The party was generally considered to be based around Repše’s personality (Pabriks and Štokenberga 2006, 58; Sikk 2006, 153), and was able to mobilise successfully without spending very much money (Sikk 2006, 141) (CHARISMA = 3). However, Repše resigned from its leadership in 2004, and we have therefore dropped this to 1 for 2006. The party did not appear to violate any LIBDEMNORMS (= 1). Given that New Era was founded by the former head of the central bank, it would be wrong to label it a 1 on INSIDER even though he was not formally in government, so we’ve placed the party at 2 for its initial election, and 3 afterward (after Respse was Prime Minister).

TB-LNNK/National Alliance

This entity is a complicated grouping of three separate parties. “For Fatherland and Freedom” (Tēvzemei un Brīvībai/TB) and the Latvian National Independence Movement (Latvijas Nacionāls Neatkarības kustība/LNNK) were separate nationalist parties in the early 1990s that merged in 1997. This party was right wing, and generally ethnocentric in favour of the ethnically Latvian majority, but from the available evidence it does not seem to be a populist party (Galbreath 2006; Braghiroli and Petsinis 2019; Auers and Kasekamp 2013, 239). In 2010, TB-LNNK allied with the far-right youth movement and political party All for Latvia! (Visu Latvijai!/VL) to form a single list in the elections that year, and a formal party, the National Alliance (NA), in 2011. The VL group had long criticised TB-LNNK for selling out nationalist interests (Auers 2011, 3). According to Auers and Kasekamp, the All for Latvia! grouping effectively took over the party after the merger (Auers and Kasekamp 2013, 236). The National Alliance is usually considered Latvia’s first and so far only true populist radical right party, and is often associated with the Estonian People’s Conservative Party (EKRE).

According to Auers, “The VL! wing of the NA added anti-elite populism to the existing nativism and authoritarianism of TB-LNNK, with VL!s more youthful deputies regularly tweeting and using social media to complain about the older parties’ lack of respect for parliament” (Auers 2018, 351). The VL! had achieved this image via a number of well-attended rallies in the 2006 election (when they nonetheless failed to pass the 5% threshold) that offered an “aggressive critique of the political elite” (Auers and Kasekamp 2013, 239). While this suggests a 3 on OTH_POLCLASS, Braghiroli & Petsinis, suggest that this rhetoric has been checked since entering government after the 2011 elections (Braghiroli and Petsinis 2019), and hence we have coded the party 3 for 2010 and 2011 and 2 since then. Further research should clarify this.

While a general ethno-centric stance had been common among ethnic Latvian parties in the immediate post-communist period, the increasing acceptance of multiculturalism allowed the NA to claim that the national elite had abandoned the ethnic majority (Braghiroli and Petsinis 2019, 4). In the NA (and other parties) the most common target of this is the Russian-speaking minority (Jakobson et al. 2012, 47). Among numerous controversial manifestations of this, it supported an annual march of Waffen SS veterans, the limitation of the Russian language in the private sphere (job advertisements for example) (Auers 2011, 5), and commenced its 2011 manifesto with the line that “Latvians must feel at home in their ethnic homeland” (Auers and Kasekamp 2013, 242; see also Bennich-Björkman and Johansson 2012). There are also credible accusations of anti-Semitism in the party (Auers and Kasekamp 2013, 243) (OTH_ETHNIC = 3). NA is staunchly opposed to refugees (Braghiroli and Petsinis 2019)(OTH_IMMIGRANT = 3), but this appears to only have become an issue after the 2015 migrant crisis in Europe (see Auers and Kasekamp 2013, 241), when Latvia agreed to accept its quota. We have labelled the party 1 on this variable before the crisis. The party is hostile to the influence of both Russia and to a lesser extent the EU (Braghiroli and Petsinis 2019, 6). The party espouses a well-articulated “intermarium” theory that attempts to maintain eastern European culture from threats emanating from both east and west (OTH_FOREIGN = 3). We have seen no evidence that the party is opposed to OTH_ECONOMIC (= 1).

The party is unambiguously radical right (Auers and Kasekamp 2013, 239) (LRPOSITION = FR), and has violated a number of important democratic norms, particularly by parading in military uniforms and celebrating the memory of controversial pre-war dictator Karlis Ilmanis (Auers and Kasekamp 2013, 243) (LIBDEMNORMS = 3). While backed by a strong and somewhat independent party organisation (the old TB-LNNK), the NA is strongly identified with its young and charismatic leader Raivis Dzintars (Auers and Kasekamp 2013, 240) (CHARISMA = 2). Given that the NA was in coalition government after the 2011 elections, we’ve labelled it 2 on INSIDER from 2014.

Zatlers Reform Party

The (September) 2011 election occurred so soon after the (December) 2010 one because incumbent president Valdis Zatlers triggered a clause in the constitution to recall parliament. He did this because he alleged that a trio of oligarchs had taken control of the government: “At the moment we

can observe not just theft from state resources but a gradual privatization of Latvian democracy” (cited in Auers 2013, 85). Zatlers went on to form his own party to participate in the election, the “Reform Party” (Reformu partija, RP), a.k.a “Zatler’s Reform Party” (ZRP).

As the name and context suggests, the central issue of the party was the endemic corruption of the political class (OTH_POLCLASS = 3). It is a somewhat difficult case because the party alleged that specific parties, not all politicians, were corrupt, so there could be an argument that it shouldn’t feature in the dataset. However, available evidence suggests that the 2011 election called by Zatler “almost exclusively focused around corruption and the illicit influence of the oligarchs” (Auers 2013, 105), and that the party did talk about corruption in “systemic” terms (Jakobson et al. 2012, 45). On this basis the party is often considered populist (Auers 2018, 352; Auers and Kasekamp 2013, 245; Jakobson et al. 2012, 122). For its anti-oligarch stance, we’ve coded it 3 on OTH_ECONOMIC. There is some evidence that the party opposed Russian influence in Latvia (Jakobson et al. 2012, 49), but not to the extent to register on OTH_FOREIGN (= 1). We’ve seen no reason to code above one for OTH_ETHNIC, OTH_IMMIGRANTS, or OTH_MILITARY (= 1).

The party appears to be centre right (LR_POSITION = CR) but this should be confirmed. The party was based on the personality of Zatler himself (Jakobson et al. 2012) (CHARISMA = 3), and seems not to have threatened democratic norms (LIBDEMNORMS = 1). Zatler was President of Latvia, but given that this position is not the head of government in Latvia, we have coded the party 2 on INSIDER.

For Latvia from the Heart

For Latvia from the Heart (No sirds Latvijai/NSL) was founded by former auditor general Ingunda Sudraba, famed for tackling the “oligarch’s” whose influence in politics her party opposed. Not a lot is written about the party other than the fact that it is generally considered right wing (Braghiroli and Petsinis 2019, 16; Kneuer 2019, 37) (LRPOSITION = CR), that it campaigned on an anti-corruption message (Eihmanis 2019, 258; Cianetti 2014, 3), and that her campaign took a hit from a video of her having lunch with a Russian “oligarchs” in question. Nonetheless, NSL picked up 6.8% in the 2014 election, before cratering to less than 1% in 2018. For her anti-oligarch stance I’ve labelled her 2 on OTH_ECONOMIC.

Sudraba is considered by Bukovskis and Sprūds to be a “charismatic longtime critic of Latvia’s bureaucratic apparatus and political leadership” (Bukovskis and Sprūds 2015) (OTH_POLCLASS = 3). There appears to be nothing to the party other than its leader (CHARISMA = 3), and there is no evidence for anything registering on any other variable. We do not consider her position as auditor general as being an INSIDER (= 1). More research should be done to confirm whether NSL’s populism reaches the threshold of the dataset.

Who owns the state?

Who owns the State? (Kam Pieder Valsts? KPV-LV is another anti-establishment party, founded by independent MP Artuss Kaimiņš, a former actor who became well known for filming parliamentary proceedings and posting them online to show problems in the political system (Balcere 2016; Auers 2018, 352). The party’s message is that the political establishment – politicians and civil servants – is corrupt and that existing parties waste taxpayers’ money (Kaža 2018; Auers 2018, 352) (OTH_POLCLASS = 3). Recent scandals in the political and banking sectors (see Higgins 2018) helped the party surge to second place in the 2018 elections only two years after its foundation, performing particularly well among diasporic communities (Arroque 2018). It formed coalition government after those elections.

The party is anti-EU (Higgins 2018) (OTH_FOREIGN = 2), but, from what we can tell, does not hold many traditionally far-right positions against OTH_ETHNIC and OTH_IMMIGRANTS (= 0). Available evidence suggests that it is conservative (LRPOSITION = CR) although it seems somewhat similar to the Five Star Movement in Italy in its deliberately non-ideological identity (Petsinis 2019), focusing only on hostility to the political class. It is also heavily reliant on Kaimiņš' confrontational personality (Arroque 2018; Kaža 2016; Bukovskis and Sprūds 2015) (CHARISMA = 3). Given Kaimiņš threats to “personally fire” journalists who upset him (Higgins, 2018), KPV-LV constitutes a mild threat to liberal democratic norms (LIBDEMNORMS = 2). Kaimiņš has not been any kind of INSIDER (= 1).

References

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