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NEWS AND VIEWS THAT IMPACT LIMITED CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT

"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with
power to endanger the public liberty." - - - - John Adams

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Socialist parties defeated in Latvia and Bulgaria


Bulgaria's centre-right GERB emerged as the winner of national elections.

Two Wins For Conservatism
Coming soon to the U.S.?  Center-Right coalitions marched to victory in two different European elections.


Former Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov is returning to power after his center-right GERB party won most seats in parliamentary elections but fell short of a majority to govern alone.

With 99 percent of the votes counted from Sunday's election, the Conservative GERB party led with 32.7 percent and the Socialists came second with 15.4 percent, the Central Election Commission announced Monday.
Boyko Borisov
A former Communist, Borisov is now
leader of a center-right party.
 
GERB officials said Monday their party was ready to form a minority government and was seeking the support of other parties but not the Socialists reports ABC News.
 
Borisov said he was prepared to govern the country and left the door open for talks with possible coalition partners. He said the alternative was holding a new election that would cause political uncertainty and financial turmoil for the European Union's poorest nation.
 
Borisov, 55, headed a minority government between 2009, when his party took nearly 40 percent of the vote, until 2013, when he resigned amid sometimes violent protests against poverty, high utility bills and corruption.
 
The nation of 7.3 million is struggling with corruption and a widespread disillusionment with the governing elite. A weak economic recovery is now threatened by a Russian ban on European food imports and a major crisis in the country's fourth-largest bank.
 
Bulgaria belongs to NATO and the 28-nation European Union but many residents feel a strong kinship to Russia.


Latvian Prime Minister's right of center Coalition Wins Majority in Election

Latvia’s ruling coalition keeps Russia-leaning
party at bay in election


A party mainly backed by ethnic Russians won the largest number of votes in Latvia’s parliamentary elections this weekend, but is likely to be shut out of government after fears over a resurgent Kremlin dominated the campaign.

The Harmony party, led by the mayor of Riga, Nil Ushakov, won 23% of the votes in the elections, while the coalition of three current ruling parties had 56% between them.

After the Kremlin’s actions in Ukraine and increased rhetoric about protecting Russians abroad, there have been concerns among the Latvian elite that the country’s large Russian-speaking minority could be used to give Moscow a foothold in the small Baltic state reports the Guardian.


Harmony favours closer ties with Moscow, while maintaining Latvia’s Nato and EU membership, and Ushakov raised eyebrows in Riga with a visit to Moscow recently during which he proclaimed that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, was “the best option that Latvia can hope for” in the current political climate.

The election result shows that Ushakov’s attempts to reach beyond his traditional ethnic Russian base and appeal to a broader electorate have failed.

The results will give Harmony 25 seats in Latvia’s 100-seat parliament, six fewer than they had before the elections, when they were also the largest single party in parliament. Other parties, however, were reluctant to enter a coalition with what is seen as the “Russian party”.

“Putting the current votes for the coalition in the preliminary results together, it has convincingly acquired a majority,” Latvia’s president, Andris Berzins, said on Sunday in a televised address.

The parties will now have a week in which to enter negotiations, with a similar configuration to the current parliament the most likely outcome.

A third of Latvia’s population is Russian-speaking, but about 280,000 are “non-citizens” of the country, holding special passports that bar them from voting. In order to become citizens, they have to take an exam on Latvian culture and history, a process which Russian rights groups say amounts to discrimination, but Latvian authorities say is necessary given the history of Soviet occupation and forced Russification policies of the past.
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Warning to American Readers
Please do not be frightened.  The Latvian election chart below is typical of democratic nations all over the world from South Korea to Poland to Israel to Australia.

All over the world voters have many different real political parties to choose from on their ballots.  That is called freedom.  While in the U.S. you are only allowed the choice of two corrupt Washington D.C. funded parties.

Don't worry.  Soon you will forget this article ever existed and go back to your dream-world thinking that you live in a democracy.
Seats won by different Latvian political parties.
See more Latvian Parliamentary Election, 2014

Parliament of Latvia

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