Abstract
The chapter focuses on the development of political communication and campaigning in Latvia. It starts with a brief overview of the basic characteristics of the political and party system. Then, it introduces the main laws and rules the campaigners must comply with. After that, the author describes the evolution of communication tactics and techniques used by parties and candidates to persuade voters to vote for them over the last three decades. At the end of the chapter, the author discusses the most recent campaigning trends in Lavia and summarises the chapter.
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- 1.
In 2011, a referendum was held on the dismissal of the Saeima before its expiry. Therefore, in 2011, the parliamentary elections took place one year after the previous one.
- 2.
In Latvia, the election campaign is known as the pre-election campaign. However, we refer to it as the election campaign throughout the chapter and book.
- 3.
The highlighted problem of Russia’s involvement in the Brexit referendum, elections in the United States, and other political processes in the West provide evidence that there is indeed a basis for concern that internal political processes may be used for the achievement of the political goals of outside forces.
- 4.
An outstanding example was the show organised by Latvia’s First Party/Latvian Way candidate Ainars Šlesers for mayor of Riga in 2009. It was a show with popular musicians, free energy drinks, and other attractions; at the culmination of the event, the candidate was symbolically lifted in the air with a crane (LETA 2009). However, the party only obtained twelve mandates out of sixty on the Riga City Council (Central Election Commission 2009), and today the party no longer exists.
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Bērziņa, I. (2019). Latvia. In: Eibl, O., Gregor, M. (eds) Thirty Years of Political Campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe. Political Campaigning and Communication. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27693-5_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27693-5_4
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