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As the European Union (EU) elections approach, the European Parliament (EP) has launched a communications campaign highlighting the importance of voting to protect democracy. The slogan is “Vote! Don’t let anyone else decide for you.”
The EP and the Latvian Election Commission will not say that the “other side” is Russia. But the institutions are clearly trying to get the message out. One campaign video shows grandparents talking to their grandchildren about the horrors of war and how they fought to gain freedom. In fact, World War II directly parallels the Kremlin’s bloody war in Ukraine and its attempts to influence foreign societies, that is, to influence people’s democratic choices.
This is because elections are where Russia wants to benefit from hybrid warfare. The election results are one of the Kremlin’s “key performance indicators.” And it seems that the effort was not in vain. Slovakia showed this. All it took was an election for former Ukrainian allies to suddenly decide that sending weapons to Kiev was unnecessary. Or Hungary will use every trick in the book to cunningly undermine Ukraine.
In an interview with Delfi TV, former Latvian President Valdis Zatlers put it bluntly: “This is a war election.”
That’s why people should vote. Every vote counts. No matter how remote the infamous corridors of Brussels may seem, it is there that European support for Ukraine is taking shape.
Finally, the big picture seems to be becoming clearer. In the 2022 Latvian parliamentary elections, voter turnout finally increased from 58.85% to 59.43%. However, like the rest of Europe, Latvia pays much less attention to the EU than to regional politics. In the 2019 elections, Latvian voter turnout was only 33.53%, compared to 30.24% in 2014. This figure is significantly lower than in national elections.
That’s shocking because there are political parties that would be happy to see Latvians staying home. There is one Center Party leadership candidate who claims Crimea belongs to Russia. There is a candidate who promises to review Latvia’s relationship with the EU. For the “for the sake of stability” party, the choice is between the national interest and leaving the “strangling coalition” (needless to say, this party is also in favor of disengagement). sanctions against Russia).
