HELSINKI (AP) — Saturday's parliamentary election in Latvia — a Baltic member of the European Union and NATO — should see a political party catering to the country's ethnic Russian minority win most votes but it remains unclear if it can find coalition partners to put it into power.
Latvia, a nation of 2 million that borders Russia, has a sizable ethnic-Russian minority of around 25 percent, more if you count other Russian-speakers such as Belarussians and Ukrainians. That is a legacy of nearly fifty years of Soviet occupation that ended in 1991.
More than 1,400 candidates from 16 parties are vying for seats Saturday in the country's 100-seat Saeima assembly. The left-leaning Harmony party is the country's largest with 24 seats but has been shunned by Latvian parties over suspicions of having a too-friendly approach to Moscow.
