While the agonising process of forming a government in Latvia finally has been resolved, if not altogether happily, a more sinister challenge and one capable of doing great harm to the Latvian body politic has emerged.

A proposal to have Russian accepted as the second official state language in Latvia is now in its second stage—gathering of signatures to present the constitutional amendment to the Saeima. Out of the blue—and completely in opposition to his own party’s declared stance on the issue—popular Harmony Centre (Saskaņas centrs) leader and Rīga Mayor Nils Ušakovs has publicly declared he added his own signature to the list.

The issue of the official state language in Latvia has been fought over since the late Soviet period. For the 14 non-Russian republics of the U.S.S.R., having the local national language declared the offical language of their territory (thus limiting the reach of Russian) was one of the most insisted on policies that eventaully helped to break up the Soviet Union. Russian had become the default language throughout the U.S.S.R. It was promoted as the “language of international communication” at that time, but was seen by most non-Russians as an imposition. Non-Russians had to learn Russian to get ahead at all in the U.S.S.R., but Russian speakers, who migrated in vast numbers to the non-Russian republics, did not need to speak the local language. Any move to change this status of Russian was fiercely resisted by Moscow at the time—and still is.

Thus, when the Baltic states regained their independence in 1991, they had already declared their local national language as the official language, and soon moved to actualise this, asking all those who had not attended schools in the national language and who had contact with the public in their work to undergo language tests to ascertain their ability to communicate in the local language. In Estonia and Latvia as well, citizenship was gained automatically only by those who had been citizens or were descendants of citizens of pre-war Estonia and Latvia; those who had migrated during the Soviet period could gain citizenship through a naturalisation test which demanded basic speaking, reading and writing skills in the national language.

This policy has continued to be opposed by Moscow, which has applied continual pressure to try to bring about automatic citizenship to all in Estonia and Latvia as well as having Russian declared an official language. One reason for this is a strategic one: If Russian becomes an official language of any country in the European Union, it automatically becomes an official language of the EU, something dear to Moscow’s heart. Meanwhile, the number of non-Estonians and non-Latvians who can function in the official language has steadily grown since 1991, with a majority of now being fluent, leaving a relatively small monolingual Russian-speaking rump.

The Latvian government has always opposed any move to make Russian a second official language, and deputies to the Saeima in their oath of allegiance inter alia declare their support for Latvian as the only official state language. This year, however, a pair of National Bolsheviks (a movement that magically combines support for Soviet authoritarianism and supposed internationalism with a rabid pro-Russian nationalism) have started a campaign to have Russian become the second official language, using constitutional means. Latvia’s constitution allows citizens to propose to the Saeima changes to any law. Initially citizens need to gather 10,000 notarised signatures for any such proposal. If this number is gathered, the Central Election Commission conducts a second round of signature-gathering. One-tenth of the electorate has to sign for a proposed amendment to go to the Saeima. Then the Saeima can either accept or reject the proposal, but if it rejects it the matter goes to a referendum. Some 153,000 signatures are required for the language amendment to go to the Saeima. Signature-gathering started on Nov. 1 and continues for a month. If the required number of signatures is gathered, the Saeima is certain to reject the proposal (all five parties in the Saeima are officially against such a proposal), thus triggering a referendum.

When Ušakovs last week added his signature to the proposal, the event that gained wide publicity and raised serious questions about his and the party’s political credentials. Harmony Centre, despite its pro-Russian stance on many matters, has as its policy support for Latvian as the sole official state language. The other prominent Harmony Centre leader, Jānis Urbanovičs, has also played with the issue by praising the leaders of the proposal. In a parallel move, Harmony Centre has now submitted a proposal to the Saeima that local governments should accept and reply to correspondence from residents in Russian, a practice not officially allowed but quietly accepted in some local governments.

The action by Ušakovs is likely to stimulate those undecided about the issue to add their signature, making more likely a referendum, which is regarded by many commentators as an unnecesarily divisive event. For those promoting Russian, this is in part as a revenge for the earlier proposal by Latvian nationalists (a proposal which did not gain the required signature numbers) to publicly finance only Latvian medium schools, thus threatening the shrinking though still extensive Russian-stream school system.

The move by Ušakovs, who until this moment had been literally bending over backwards to appeal to the Latvian electorate, throws new light on the long-drawn coalition-building process when Harmony Centre, the largest party in the Saeima with 31 deputies, hoped to be included in the new government but was left on the sidelines. Any inclusion of Harmony Centre in the coalition would have led to rapid and untenable conflict on issues such as the language issue.

Meanwhile, the coalition government of Unity (Vienotība), the Zatlers Reform Party (Zatlera Reformu partija, or ZRP) and the National Alliance (Nacionālā apvienība “Visu Latvijai!” – “Tēvzemei un Brīvībai/LNNK”) has been approved by the Saeima. The coalition controls 56 out of the 100 deputies, a majority more slender than it seems as the ZRP was shaken when six of its deputies left the faction, citing former President Valdis Zatlers’ authoritarianism as the reason, while still supporting the eventual coalition. Valdis Dombrovskis (Unity) has been returned for the third successive period as prime minister, and now needs to steer Latvia through the painful rebuilding of the economy, which is showing significant signs of growth. Fighting off the Russian official language threat will be an unecessary detour on this path of hopeful recovery, though recovery will not be made easier by the renewed European financial crisis.

After the extraordinary Saeima elections of Sept. 17, Latvian voters have watched almost with disbelief at a shambles of a search for a viable coalition government.

Bad dealing, contradictions, second-guessing and sudden U-turns were frequent in wrestling with the overwhelming question of whether the Russian-leaning Harmony Centre (Saskaņas centrs), the party with the largest number of deputies after the elections, would form part of a coalition.

The Oct. 10 announcement that a coalition would finally be formed of the three centre-right Latvian parties, while welcome, still seems to have raised more questions than answers. Along the way, political reputations (some very recently established, some of longer standing) have been tarnished, and many voters are more than puzzled by why their party seemingly said one thing before the election and did something else afterwards—not for the first time in Latvian politics.

Harmony Centre won the election convincingly, with 31 deputies in the 100-member Saeima, with the Zatlers Reform Party (Zatlera Reformu partija, ZRP) claiming 22 seats, and the previously leading party Unity (Vienotība) claiming 20. The National Alliance (Nacionālā apvienība “Visu Latvijai!” – “Tēvzemei un Brīvībai/LNNK”) gained 14, while the previously strong and oligarch-aligned Union of Greens and Farmers (Zaļo un Zemnieku savienība, ZZS) trailed with 13 deputies.

Given that the ZRP and Unity appealed to much the same electorate, they took the lead in coalition discussions, but Harmony Centre gained great publicity from its strong showing (an increase of two deputies over the previous election) and seemingly confidently expected to be included in a coalition, despite fears by Latvian nationalists of what this would mean for governance. With the Harmony Centre victory predicted by all polls, speculation was rife as to whether the largely centre-right Latvian parties would countenance a coalition with Harmony Centre. The more nationalistic National Alliance flatly stated it would never be in such a coalition, but all other parties had varying positions. Critical was the attitude of the ZRP, which laid down conditions—very similar to those of Unity—to which Harmony Centre would have to agree: recognise the fact of Latvia’s occupation from 1940 (on which the Harmony Centre had always been equivocal); agree not to drive the budget into further deficit (the Harmony Centre had been claiming to be a socialdemocratic party with an stimulus-directed economic program); and for Harmony Centre to distance itlsef from the small rump of its party constituted by the Latvian Socialist Party, with former Communist First Secretary Alfreds Rubiks at its head.

Meanwhile, from right after the election, Unity had pushed the idea of an alliance between it, ZRP and the National Alliance, who they saw as ideologically most compatible.

In the two weeks after the election ZRP and Harmony Centre clearly moved closer to each other. In a move that has been interpreted in varying ways, Harmony Centre leader and Rīga Mayor Nīls Ušakovs at a foreign diplomatic gathering, speaking in English, referred to Latvia having been occupied for 50 years. Harmony Centre also in other statements agreed to not increase the current budget deficit. Following these events, on Oct. 1, while talks with Unity were still underway, ZRP announced unilaterally that it wished to form a coalition with Harmony Centre, and invited Unity to join. Unity responded angrily to this announcement, which it saw as provocative, and another week and a half of intense negotiation ensued. In this time Harmony Centre also agreed to distance itself from Rubiks, whose small rump has only three of the the party’s deputies.

Clearly, Harmony Centre was willing to agree with any demand made by ZRP simply to become part of the government coalition—a stance that now began to draw even some questioning from its usually supportive Russian-language press. ZRP voters believed they had been duped by the prospect of Harmony Centre as a coalition partner, though the ZRP had clearly alerted its electorate to this possibility in its platform, if anyone had cared to notice. Yet a number of ZRP deputies also expressed their disquiet after the announcement of coalition with Harmony Centre.

Unity believed this invitation was opportunistic and proposed in quick turn two alternative models: a five-party coalition of national unity, an absurd proposal, not least as ex-President Valdis Zatlers had categorically stated he would never work with the ZZS, who he saw as the party of oligarchs. (In a tangled story, it was these people who had persuaded Zatlers to stand for president four year ago, but then turned against him as he increasingly asserted his independence.) The proposal was quickly replaced by Unity’s try for a four-party coalition, bringing in ZRP, and the ideologically utterly opposed Harmony Centre and National Alliance. The National Alliance, with an increased representation in the new Saeima, had become prominent with a number of provocative actions stressing the continuing consequences of Soviet occupation and the dangers that beset the Latvian nation and culture from Russian political influence. It was fantasy to consider Harmony Centre and the National Alliance could ever be in coalition. Yet in fact this was all positioning by Unity to achieve its main aim—get Harmony Centre out of any coalition.

Meanwhile, events were unfolding around the notion of “occupation.” This has been a central and vexed question of Latvian politics, with one wing of pro-Russian sentiment (as with Rubiks) still maintaining that the Baltic states voluntarily joined the Soviet Union in 1940, a position completely rejected by the overwhelmingly majority of Balts. Harmony Centre now devised a truly Orwellian formula that it in turn put forward as its condition of joining a coalition: Latvia had been occupied, but there were now no longer any “occupiers”—okupācija bija, okupantu nav. In other words, no-one of the present was responsible for the occupation. This was to counter the more extreme nationalists who argued occupiers should leave Latvia.

Unity worked very hard behind the scenes, and it was clear that considerable pressure was mobilised to get ZRP to change its stance on coalition with Harmony Centre. Large numbers of Zatlers supporters (openly) and deputies (covertly) urged it to change. The agreement of Oct. 10 in which ZRP agreed to coalition with Unity and the National Alliance, was the result, gained by such tortuous means.

The whole event has shown very starkly the political lack of experience of the ZRP, formed barely three months ago. Zatlers has hardly had time to know his own party people, and his premature desire to be in coalition with the Harmony Centre cost him enormously in political capital.

However, it equally has also revealed either political naiveté or lack of political organisation on the part of the Harmony Centre. Some commenators have argued the party simply expected to be taken into government because of its election victory and offering a few program compromises, but others have argued Harmony Centre did not really want to be in government, given Latvia’s continuing economic woes.

After the Oct. 10 announcement of the new coalition, the Russian-language press predictably and uniformly had front covers denouncing “ethnic discrimination.” Meanwhile, Ušakovs had repeatedly stated that it was not only Russians who voted for his party, but many many Latvians as well. Who is discriminating whom remains the loud but tedious argument that never seems to leave Latvian politics. No wonder the voters—of almost all parties—are puzzled at the last month’s events.

After the passion of the July 23 referendum, in which 94 percent of voters supported former President Valdis Zatlers’ recommendation to dismiss the parliament, the weeks leading up to the election of the new Saeima on Sept. 17 have been generally lacklustre.

Given Latvia’s long-term economic plight, the limited room to move for any elected government and the remarkably similar programs all major parties present, there has been a campaign centring largely on personalities.

Zatlers has continued to be the key figure, and the promise of something new in Latvian politics, after his impressive decision in moving to dismiss the Saeima (for which the parliament rewarded him by electing a new president, Andris Bērziņš). Zatlers’ decision to form a new party rather than take up the leading party Unity’s (Vienotība) invitation to join it was probably correct, in that his party appears to have significant support in the electorate. Zatlers may have been overshadowed and his role downplayed if he had joined Unity, which is increasingly blamed for the perceived glacial rate of improvement in Latvia’s economy.

Yet Zatlers has not had it all his own way. Collecting a credible political party in the space of a few months has been difficult. His candidate for prime minister, Edmunds Sprūdžs, and several of his other key people are not widely known. Some have been shown to have less than spotless pasts (digging this up is a journalistic pastime in Latvia). Most of all, Zatlers has struggled to differentiate his party policy from that of Unity. His opponents point to his lack of political experience, though this cuts less ice as Zatlers has shown himself to be increasingly confident and knowledgeable in his appearances.

Several major questions have dominated political commentary, mostly concerning the party that has largely led polling (as it did before the last Saeima elections)—Harmony Centre (Saskaņas centrs ). This party, largely supported by Russian and other non-Latvian voters, is itself a combination of three factions, but includes a spectrum from hardline old Soviet folk (Alfreds Rubiks is one of its Eurodeputies) to very moderate and clearly pro-Latvian politicians. However, its alliance with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party and its prevaricating stance on many issues of Latvian history and identity has meant that many voters regard it with suspicion.

Two questions dominate regarding Harmony Centre: How well will it do in the elections and who is willing to bring it into a coalition government? After the last Saeima election and Unity’s victory, many observers were surprised the Unity turned around and invited Harmony Centre to discuss coming into coalition. Zatlers’ Reform Party (ZRP) has also indicated it would talk with Harmony Centre. Unity and ZRP have laid down preconditions, such as recognition of the fact of Latvia being occupied by the Soviet Union, and not changing the official state language (Latvian). Harmony Centre’s refusal to discuss the issue of occupation last time may have cost it a place in the governing coalition.

The fact that both Unity and ZRP are willing to countenance a coalition with Harmony Centre has alienated many supporters, but a look at the likely outcomes of the elections as judged by polling shows this to be a more-than-likely possibility.

Unlike previous years, the polls have shown a great deal of inconsistency. Over the past three to four weeks three separate companies—Latvijas fakti, Faktum and GfK—have produced different polls, as shown in this table:

The Latvijas fakti polling importantly indicated the undecided and non-participating voters, but Faktum does not, distributing the undecided among the other parties, while GfK does not give us any percentages, only the supposed number of deputies in the 100-member Saeima. According to both Latvijas fakti and Faktum, Harmony Centre and ZRP are neck-and-neck with Unity some distance behind, but with quite diferent outcomes predicted for the National Association. A potential coalition between ZRP, Unity and either the National Association or the Union of Greens and Farmers would appear to be on the cards. But Harmony Centre and ZRP could also go it on their own.

GfK, on the other hand, has put Harmony Centre way out in front, and the prediction of a stupendous 41 delegates in the early September poll is quite extraordinary. The polling company also sees Unity as pipping ZRP, and rates the National Association much lower. If the GfK poll is anything like correct, we can see an easy coalition between Harmony Centre and the pivotal Greens and Farmers, which has been influential in so many elections, has a kingmaker role and whose favouring of the arch oligarch Aivars Lembergs as prime minister reveals a total lack of political ethics and a willingness to do any deal to stay in power. It is the Greens and Farmers, as part of the current coalition government, that has often undermined Unity for its own ends.

In the polls before the last Saeima elections, Harmony Centre led in many polls, but was pipped in the election by Unity. A major factor here is in the undecided vote. The largely Russian voters who support Harmony Centre have usually clearly made their minds up well before the election. It is the Latvian voters who are most often undecided, but when they do make up their minds they will overwhelmingly go for one of the competing Latvian parties rather than Harmony Centre. This was the mechanism that enabled Unity to do so well in the last election, but it depended on getting the voters out in numbers.

Much depends on the mood of the electorate and whether they have enthusiasm for ZRP and Unity, or see little new in stock in Latvian politics, and have expended their passion on expelling the old Saeima, not electing the new.

Finally, if any coalition with Harmony Centre does come about, that may not be the end of the story. An organisation such as the NATO defense alliance may be quite interested in such a result, and decide not to share its secrets or in other ways put restrictions on a party that has close ties to Moscow. We will see.

Vote carefully in the coming election—a lot is at stake!