RIGA - Latvia's pro-Russian party launched a bid on Monday for a place in government for the first time in the Baltic state's post-Soviet period, but suspicions it hopes to steer policy towards Moscow could stem any chance of coalition membership.
The Harmony Centre party, traditionally supported by Latvia’s large Russian minority, is due to meet the two centre-right Latvian parties leading coalition talks after winning the most votes in a weekend poll.
But its goal of easing the ruling centre-right’s austerity measures and improving ties with eastern neighbour Russia could make the talks difficult.
"Harmony Centre is for me at the moment a complete dark horse," said former President Valdis Zatlers, whose party came second in the election.
If Harmony realises its goal of being in a coalition, it could help Russia increase its influence in the NATO member and EU state, which has not had a party catering to its Russian minority in government since it regained independence in 1991.
Zatlers, who forced the snap election less than a year after the last vote by dissolving parliament in a fight against corruption, told a news programme the meeting would be the first time Harmony had ever been involved in serious government talks.
Harmony would later meet the Unity Party of Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis, who led tough austerity measures during an international bailout and says his policies helped Latvia recover from an 18 percent output drop in 2009.
Zatlers and Dombrovskis, seen as natural allies, jointly have 42 seats in the 100-seat parliament to Harmony’s 31 and need a third partner for a majority. That could be Harmony, or a nationalist bloc, which has 14 seats.
HISTORIC QUESTIONS
Before the vote, Harmony backed more social welfare spending and is reluctant about moving to the euro.
Zatlers and Dombrovskis back euro adoption in 2014 and want to pursue further fiscal austerity to reach that goal.
Harmony leader Nils Usakov, 35, the mayor of capital city Riga, told Dienas Bizness newspaper that Latvia should only try to meet the economic criteria to adopt the euro in 2013. That would mean its launch in 2015 at the earliest.
He also backed a referendum, with polls currently showing little support for the euro.
Usakov’s bid to share power could get a boost from a report that Harmony could have received support from 15 percent of ethnic Latvian voters — showing the party had widened its appeal from its traditional base of Russian-speaking people.
The data, reported in a daily newspaper, have yet to be confirmed by other experts. Harmony’s number of votes rose only slightly from the last ballot in October 2010. It won two more seats.
Latvian parties also have to overcome suspicion of Russian influence and disagreement over the Soviet period, which many ethnic Latvians see as a period of illegal occupation.
Usakov has seemed to soften his stance on such questions, saying he was not allergic to the word occupation, though he rejected seeing Soviet-era Russian-speakers as "occupants".
About a third of the 2.2 million population are Russian speakers and just over half of them have the right to vote.
If Harmony is eventually left out of the coalition, Zatlers and Dombrovskis could turn to the nationalist All for Latvia-For Fatherland and Freedom-LNNK to form a majority.
It doubled its parliament presence to 14 seats. But some of its members are also seen as too ultra-nationalist.
President Andris Berzinsh is responsible for nominating the prime minister. He has said he will only do that after Sept. 28, when he returns from a trip to the United Nations in New York, giving parties time to agree on a coalition.
Zatlers dissolved parliament after lawmakers, including Harmony Centre, refused permission for prosecutors to search a flat owned by a businessman, who was a member of the old parliament and one of three men labelled as oligarchs.
Two of the three "oligarchs", who deny any wrongdoing, lost their places in parliament, while a farmers’ party spearheaded by the third had its representation cut to 13 seats from 22.
