Russian MFA Information and Press Department Commentary Regarding a Media Question Concerning Municipal Elections in Latvia

Unofficial translation from Russian

Question: How can you evaluate the fact that in the Latvian municipal elections held on March 12 almost half a million residents of the country were again deprived of a right to participate in them?

Answer: From the vantage point of observance of the universally recognized rights and political freedoms in present-day Europe it is indeed hard to recognize as normal the situation in which the citizens of European Union countries who are on the territory of Latvia can within a couple of months become entitled to influence the results of municipal elections while more than 460,000 people who were born or have lived a considerable part of their lives in that state are deprived of one of the fundamental rights. That situation strikingly demonstrates a serious shortage of democracy in Latvia, which even before the most authoritative international organizations have drawn attention more than once. Evidently the time has come for these organizations, including the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, to take more drastic steps to remove the above shortage of democracy in Latvia. The European Union should probably also tell Riga appropriately, for the references to the conformity of Latvian human rights practices with the so called "Copenhagen criteria" of the EU sound ever less convincing.

March 14, 2005