All About Latvia

As if speaking to Latvia’s MEP Tatjana Zdanoka, one woman exemplified a sentiment of most minority voters, when she said “Tatjana, people are simply tired of fighting and barricades. Long time ago, we all learned to speak Latvian and now want to live peacefully.”

For years, Zdanoka fought with vigor for various causes, from opposition to Latvia’s independence in 1991, to teaching certain subjects in Latvian in state-funded minority high schools, to the rights of the Russophone non-citizens to vote, to establishing Russian as another official language in the country.

The results of her work are self-evident: Latvia has been independent for 15 years. The education reform for now proved to be a success. Naturalization will continue. And Russian will not become another official language any time soon. Fighting for Russian-speaking minority changed very little.

Many demostrations have been held. Many pickets have been staged. Many people have been disillusioned.

15 years since people are growing weary of barricades, demostrations, and protests.

Since the dawn of post-Soviet Latvia, the problems of Russian-speaking non-citizens divided the political map of this small Eastern European country. “For Human Rights in United Latvia,” (PCTVL) led by Zdanoka, represented uber-extreme views regarding minorities on the Latvian political arena.

But in this election, comparatively moderate pro-minority party called Saskanas Centrs , or Harmony Party (SC) won as many seats as Jaunais Laiks. Speaking to portal Delfi, Zdanoka complained that SC lured many minority voters through the support of some of the Russian-language media in this country. That means, PCTVL couldn’t compete.

And now, perhaps, some pro-Latvian parties will include SC into the coalition government. The position of the minister of integration seems to be an appropriate place for SC. Speaking to Agense France Press, Latvia’s Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis said it’s possible to work with SC to form the next coalition government. The coalition talks will begin Monday.

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There’s no better way to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving Day…

Non-Latvian speakers may require translation of the last portion of this video:

Latvian President Honorable Vaira “Iam.ca” Vike Freiberga said, “A voter is a person who orders what tune gets to be played by an orchestra. If the music is ordered by someone else, his rights are taken away.” Saturday, all to polling place to change the orchestra.

Credit: Pankūkas - Pētersonei!

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