Integration monitor

Integration monitor is a daily Latvian press digest on ethnic minority and society integration issues. The Monitor reviews the biggest Latvian dailies: Diena, Latvijas Avize, Neatkariga (in Latvian language), Vesti Segodnya (in Russian language). In specific cases other information sources are used. Latvian Centre for Human Rights is not responsible for information published by the media.

June 4, 2013

  • Newspapers report about the process of the elections to the Parliament of Unrepresented
  • MP Janis Urbanovics: Concord Centre is not a mono-ethnic party anymore
  • Representatives of Latvian intelligentsia criticize the success of the Concord Centre in Riga

Vesti Segodnya and Latvijas Avize report about the elections to the Parliament of Unrepresented initiated by non-governmental organisation Congress of Non-Citizens (CN). The first day of the elections was held on the same day with the municipal elections. According to a representative of the CN Elizabete Krivcova, 2,100 persons voted at the special polling stations in Riga and other Latvian cities and more than 1,000 on the Internet by the 6 p.m. of the first elections day. The elections will continue until 11 June.

Neatkariga prints an interview with the head of the Saeima’s faction of the Concord Centre (CC) in the Saeima Janis Urbanovics. Mr Urbanovics believes that the results of the local elections in Riga prove that CC is not a mono-ethnic party anymore because it gain support also from ethnic Latvians. However, Mr Urbanovics does not agree that there was no ethnic voting at all, but he believes that a large step was made towards overcoming ethnic voting. As reported, the CC got more than 58% of votes in Riga.

Vesti Segodnya reports about some of the comments from representatives of Latvian intelligentsia about the results of the local elections in Riga. Commenting the victory of the Concord Centre (CC) at the elections, writer Gundega Repse stated “I did not think that Riga will be given to occupants”. The other well-known writer Mara Zalite stated that ethnic Latvians who voted for the CC betrayed Latvia’s interests. Shortly before the elections, Latvian theatre director Alvis Hermanis compared those who vote for the CC with the "lumpens", alleged ethnic Russians who vote for the CC as having schizophrenic state of mind, and compared ethnic Latvian old ladies who vote for this party because of the free-of-charge local transportation with prostitutes who sell themselves for more expensive price.

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  • Integration Monitor - daily Latvian press digest on minority and social integration issues

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