Saeima candidates to face voters’ rage

  • 2010-09-29
  • Staff and wire reports

RIGA - Just over half, or 55 percent, of Latvia’s residents say they blame the current economic crisis on politicians who, they accuse, have failed to live up to voters’ expectations. According to the latest public opinion survey by DnB Latvijas barometrs, 12 percent of respondents blame the crisis on businessmen who, they believe, had tried to earn too fast and too much; 10 percent said voters were to blame because they had made irresponsible choices in the previous elections; 5 percent blamed international donors, and 2 percent blamed employees who had demanded too large salaries, reports Nozare.lv.

Only 3 percent said that no one was to blame for the current mess, while 7 percent were unable to offer an opinion. Meanwhile, less than one-third, or 31 percent of voters, are pleased with how they voted in the previous Saeima elections. Thirty-seven percent said that they should have voted differently in the previous elections, and 10 percent said that they did not vote four years ago, whereas 15 percent said that they had made the wrong choice and were “near-sighted.”
Leading up to the 10th Saeima elections, set for Oct. 2, 46 percent of Latvia’s citizens now plan to vote for a different party than that which they voted for in the 9th Saeima elections, shows the survey. Only 30 percent of respondents said that on election day would they vote for the same party that they had voted for four years ago.

Of these, seven percent said that they had voted for one and the same party for many years already, 6 percent said that they would vote for their favorite party this fall because other political forces had not done anything preferable to other parties, 5 percent said that there was no alternative to the party of their choice, 4 percent named a given party’s program and ideology as the reason, 4 percent said they liked the party’s leaders, 2 percent said that the party they would vote for had been working honestly for the good of the people, and 2 percent said that they would support that party whose policies coincided with their personal interests.

Of those 46 percent of respondents who will vote for a different party this time, 17 percent said that they wanted completely different persons to be in parliament this time, 15 percent said that the party they had voted for in the past had disappointed them, 5 percent said other parties had done better than their favorite party four years ago, and another 5 percent said that the party they had voted for in the previous elections did not exist anymore.
The poll was carried out from August 13 to August 27.

It is therefore not surprising that results from sociological research center SKDS show that the 9th Saeima has had the lowest trust of the people among the last four Saeimas, reports news agency LETA. On average, 39.8 percent of respondents trusted the 6th Saeima, 31.1 percent trusted the 8th Saeima, 25 percent trusted the 7th Saeima, but the 9th Saeima garnered just 15.4 percent support.
In the surveyed period, the highest level of society’s trust was reached during the 8th Saeima, with almost 48 percent. The lowest level of trust since 1996, only 4.5 percent, came last January when Saeima experienced the lowest level of trust, as reflected by the riot - which was conducted mostly by young hooligans - in Old Town Riga outside the Saeima building.

During the 9th Saeima, trust has convincingly dropped. During the election of the 9th Saeima, 33 percent of Latvians trusted it, but right now seven percent of respondents trust parliament.
Governments formed by the current Saeima have had slightly better relations with the public, but not one of the replacement governments seemed more reliable than the previous one. The Aigars Kalvitis (People’s Party) government started to work with 38 percent of society’s support, but ended with 17 percent as its mismanagement of the economy pulled the country into Europe’s worst depression. Ivars Godmanis’ (Latvia’s First Party/Latvia’s Way) government was trusted by 26 percent of Latvians, but at its resignation, by only seven percent, which is the lowest trust level in SKDS survey history.

Valdis Dombrovskis’ government started to work with 17 percent support, which later dropped to eight percent. But this year society has started to trust the government a bit more, and in August was favorably looked upon by almost 18 percent of respondents; in September this was at 14 percent.