RIGA: The pro-Kremlin Harmony party won Latvia’s general election ahead of populists, final results showed Sunday, but talks on forming a governing coalition looked thorny due to the country’s fragmented political scene.

Harmony topped Saturday’s vote with 19.8 per cent of the vote ahead of two populist parties — KPV LV with 14.25 per cent and the New Conservative Party with 13.6 per cent.

“No coalition combination is possible without Harmony that would appear able and stable,” Harmony chairman and Riga mayor Nils Ushakovs told the LETA agency.

Harmony is popular with Latvia’s ethnic Russian minority which makes up about a quarter of the country’s 1.9-million population.

It was formerly allied with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party and has won the largest number of votes in the last three elections.

It never entered government as it failed to attract coalition partners, but KPV LV suggested before the vote that they may help propel it to power this time.

“KPV LV can work with anybody. We don’t have any red lines regarding any other political force,” lawyer Aldis Gobzems, KPV LV’s candidate for prime minister, said in a recent TV debate. But the New Conservative Party leader, Janis Bordans, ruled out any cooperation with Harmony, saying this was “our red line before and after the election.”

Political analysts predicted hard and long talks. They said Harmony and KPV LV looked too lonely to form a coalition, mustering a mere 39 seats between them in the 100-member parliament.

“On the one hand, voters want changes. On the other, people do not want their country given away to the Kremlin and populists,” said analyst Marcis Krastins.

‘Fragmented’

The pro-EU, pro-Nato liberal For Development/For! party came fourth in the vote with 12 per cent, beating parties from the current centre-right governing coalition including the right-wing National Alliance, which earned 11 percent.

The centre-right Greens and Farmers Union of Prime Minister Maris Kucinskis won 9.9 per cent and New Unity took 6.7 per cent as the last party crossing the five-percent threshold to have seats in parliament.

The ruling three-party government coalition fared poorly despite having improved the country’s economy, which was hit hard by the 2008 financial crisis.

Still, its leaders and analysts believed it would have a say in the next government coalition.

“I am sure that initiative in the coalition talks must come from the centre-right parties,” Augusts Brigmanis, the Greens and Farmers Union chairman, told LETA.

Political scientist Filips Rajevskis said the new parliament is “very fragmented” and predicted “ugly” talks.

Political science professor Juris Rozenvalds from the University of Latvia said the talks could go on until the end of the year with the old cabinet kept in place for the time being.

Pro-Russian hack

The vote was tarnished by a hacker attack on the Draugiem.lv social network, second in popularity only to Facebook in the Baltic state, which displayed a pro-Russian message.

“Comrades, Latvians, this concerns you. The borders of Russia have no end,” it said in Russian, followed by images of soldiers annexing Crimea, Russian tanks parading in Moscow and a smiling Vladimir Putin.

Turnout for Saturday’s vote was 54.6 per cent, according to the election website.

Formerly part of the Soviet Union, Latvia is now a member of the eurozone and Nato, having joined the military alliance in 2004.

Harmony has suggested it may tip Latvia’s foreign policy in favour of Russia. Political analyst Marcis Bendiks said Harmony’s campaign promise to cut defence spending to one percent of GDP went against Nato agreements.

Published in Dawn, October 8th, 2018