And Now For Something Completely Similar

The timing of the Latvian general election on October 2 is a godsend for TV executives. It means that throughout the long summer ‘silly season’ when nothing much happens (other than dozens of people drowning every weekend) they can pad out their schedules with lengthy and cheap to produce debates on the topical issues of the day – and look like they are doing a public service at the same time.

On the face of it, this is a good thing. Even the most boring, ill-informed political waffle is preferable to the endless stream of Russian “humour shows” and repeats of schlager music festivals from three years ago.

These shows can seem like – and sometimes are – laudable if uneven efforts to portray democracy in action. But some others are frankly nothing but cynical propaganda posing as reasoned debate.

I’ve just had the dubious pleasure of watching Latvia We Are Listening on the LNT channel. LNT actually produces a couple of good programmes, such as Martins Sirmais’ food shows. Its TV news department is probably the best in the country.

Unfortunately, LNT decided to bump its news bulletin  in order to give us more of Latvia We Are Listening. The show is an absolute shocker, a craven piece of propagada for the political grouping For The Good of Latvia! (PLL).

On last night’s show, of the panel of ten people giving their opinions about agriculture, most had either direct or indirect links to PLL. The lopsided nature of the debate would almost have been understandable had the participants actually declared their interests at the start of the show – but they did not. As a result what we got was a party political broadcast masquerading as a debate.

Participants included LNT director Andrejs Ekis. Ekis is a prominent supporter of PLL. His name is often linked with that of PLL co-leader Andris Skele in connection with the so-called “digitalgate” investigation which involves allegations of huge fraud using offshore companies in the way Latvia switched to digital TV. Both Ekis and Skele deny any wrongdoing. The investigation continues. Ekis had his assets frozen in March.

Unsurprisingly, the journalist nominally in charge of proceedings, Haralds ‘the hair’ Burkovskis, didn’t exactly give his boss a rough ride.

Also taking part was Eriks Stendzenieks, advertising executive and self-styled film director. Stendzenieks has a long and well documented relationship with Ainars Slesers, the other co-leader of PLL. Stendzenieks famously said the infamous Latvian meteorite fraud was a really great idea then came up with the sixth-grade idea of promoting Slesers and co-leader Andris Skele as “AS squared” because they have the same initials.

Another participant was businessman Gunars Kirsons – yet again a prominent PLL supporter – whose restaurant played host to the talks that led to the formation of PLL.

Then there was cardiologist Andrejs Erglis, an on-the-record PLL fan and commonly seen on TV advertising proprietary heart tablets. Oh, and Rolands Gulbis, director of the Valmieras Piens dairy which just happens to be owned by the  Skele family. So it wasn’t just Burkovskis who had to be on his best behaviour.

Making up the numbers was nervous journalist Iveta Tomsone, agricultural consultant Martins Cimermanis (who actually seemed to talk some sense) a couple of farmers  from the regions (one of whom had talks with Skele earlier in the day) and artist Kaspars Zarins.

The show kicked off with a highly emotive tale of a farmer gone bust, complete with weeping violin soundtrack. “They’ll say it’s all the fault of the current government,” I said, only to be proved correct in about 10 seconds.

Despite the fact the farmer had been speaking in front of a rather swish looking shed built using EU money and a spanking new tractor, the show quickly degenerated into a familiar story. As we all know, everyone in the EU spends a large part of their well-paid weeks working on plans to stick it to Latvia. The whole EU project is essentially a just way for everyone to be as mean as possible to Latvia which would otherwise be the greatest nation on earth, no question.

Speaking of questions, viewers were invited to text in their answers to a question of staggering banality: “Does Latvia need agriculture?” The possible responses were Yes (98%) and No (2%). The ‘No’ voters presumably consist of a tribe of old school hunter-gatherers somewhere in the wilds of Latgale.

Along the way we got couple of real pearlers from contributors including: “Under the Soviet Union, all the fields were well organized and productive, today they are overgrown.”

Even better was a classic contribution from LNT’s very own Ekis, said with a completely straight face: “A British farmer told me the reason they have agriculture is in case the Germans decide to go to war and try to blockade the British Isles again.”

Yes, Latvia’s farmers do get quite a raw deal. They were also unlucky – along with a lot of other people – that they took out massive loans at just the wrong time for their tractors and barn renovations.

The promotion of a sense of victimised paranoia is not going to help sort out agriculture, but if it will help to win  few votes for PLL from desperate farmers eager to believe the AS gang can wave a magic wand then it seems to be fair enough.

Best of all, this PLL love-in took place in a studio emblazoned with the words “Politics Free Zone.”

It is probably indicative that the best of the topical shows by a mile, What’s Happening in Latvia?, actually takes a midsummer break. Maybe that’s another reason pretenders such as Latvia We’re Listening and The Red Line (which specialises in psychedelic camera effects) rush in to hog the airwaves.

What Latvia really needs is a good, vicious satire show in the tradition of the US’s Daily Show or the UK’s Brasseye. God knows there is plenty of ripe subject matter, but it’s hard to imagine any TV station having the balls or commercial freedom to prick the bubble egos of the great and the good on a weekly basis.

In the absence of such shows, there are some laughs to be had from watching Latvia We’re Listening – but it is laughter of a hollow and ultimately depressing sort.

Acorn Antique

Ebelmuiza Oak - more durable than Soviet Utopia

I’ve written before of the pleasure to be had meeting Latvia’s ‘dižkoki’ or notable trees. But of all of the ones I have encountered so far, by far the most peculiar  is the Ebelmuiza Oak (Ēbeļmuižas ozols) in Riga’s anonymous Ziepniekkalns district.

Standing in a fragment of what was once baronial parkland, the 300-year-old tree is a grizzled giant; looking deformed and demented but somehow clinging tenaciously to life. The location is truly surreal with late-period Soviet housing schemes serving as a geometric backcloth to what was once a bucolic feudal idyll, as if two different dimensions of space and time accidentally overlapped here.

Propped up on two pairs of giant wooden staves, the Ebelmuiza oak looks as if it is leaning on crutches. The impression of invalidity is reinforced by a rough patchwork of wooden boards and metal plates that cover deep scars in its trunk, while the upper branches have suffered stumpy amputation as a result of some clumsy surgery that may have saved the patient but ruined his looks.

Inside the hollows of the trunk, dozens of empty glass bottles shine from the shadows, giving the impression that the tree itself has emptied them over the years. Perhaps that is the secret of its longevity – it has soused itself with cheap vodka.

The tree bears the scars of its long life

In truth two other oaks standing forty metres to the west are handsomer, stronger and taller but for all their sturdiness they lack the wracked character of the Ebelmuiza Oak. It is like those other beings one sometimes comes across in parks and beside disintegrating concrete apartment blocks: the burned-out wrecks of men who rail against the world and its innumerable indignities. Knocked around, bruised and semi-coherent, they have the same philosophy as the Ebelmuiza Oak: to survive until the next day. It is a task at which they often excel despite the appearance of perpetual and imminent destruction.

The Ebelmuiza Oak looks like it could die at any moment. It has probably looked like that for longer than most men’s lives.

(If you are interested in meeting some dižkoki yourself, I strongly recommend the book ’100 Dizakie un Svetakie’ by Guntis Enins. It’s available from most bookshops in Latvia and even if you don’t read Latvian the maps and photographs provide plenty of information. Enins is also an MP for the Greens And Farmers’ Union, but don’t hold that against him.)

Table Manners

If the sunlit terraces are any indication, Latvia’s ruling classes have little to worry about. During the summer you can see the great and the not-so-good lounging outside the cafes that circle the parliament building, luring deputies in between strenuous sessions.

Sipping coffee and nibbling cakes, the deputies can often be observed holding court in front of party underlings or having an impromptu meeting with some business contact. Every time I see one of them with a leather briefcase under the table I wonder whether they might be following the lead of former prime minister Indulis Emsis and walking around with a bag stuffed full of cash for some absolutely innocent purpose.

The deputies look relaxed and confident. Naturally, I eavesdrop whenever possible. Occasionally their conversation will venture into what this or that rival party will do, but never with a sense of urgency or threat. After all, the other parties haven’t got a clue, have they?

As a rule the lower the speaker’s own opinion poll rating, the more blithely unconcerned they appear to be about October’s general election. Some of those I listen to are among the most widely despised politicians in the country. They are the most relaxed, placing successive dainty buns and pastries into their cakeholes before chewing with their mouths open like lords at a Tudor banquet. There is no sense that the trough is about to be taken away.

A few months ago I was genuinely excited by the prospect of the general election. But with every passing day I am getting more depressed about the whole thing. Real electioneering is only just starting with parties revealing their candidate lists.

Gearing up for the election

Let’s start with the positives. At least some sort of political consolidation is taking place. Parties are forming themselves intomore or less coherent blocs with Unity for the Euro-enthusiast progressives; For The Good Of Latvia! (don’t forget the hysterical excalmation mark!) for “business” – for which read the oligarchs – and latterly we’ve also had the rather nationalist For Fatherland and Freedom party teaming up with the extremely nationalist All For Latvia.

Let’s not forget that and the Russophile Harmony Centre is also technically an alliance of five diferent parties, though they have been effective in acting like a single entity and started their consolidation long before the ‘Latvian’ parties could bring themselves to talk to each other.

Terms such as ‘right wing’ and ‘left wing’ so beloved of international commentators are largely meaningless in a Latvian political context, outstripped only by Latvia’s “Greens” who should on no account be confused with Green parties elsewhere. After all the Greens’ likely candidate for Prime Minister is mayor of an oil town who has been on trial for money laundering and bribery for the last few years.

The Greens and their sub-parties notably haven’t joined up with anyone else, hopeful that their fairly strong vote amongst bumpkins and Ulmanis nostalgists will leave them holding the balance of power.

So far so good. But these new election blocs have the appearance of shotgun weddings. Aware that the Harmony Centre can count on a getting 25-30% of the vote from Russians, the increasingly fractious Latvian parties realised they needed to pool their resources or  face the prospect of failing to cross the 5% threshold necessary to get into parliament.

But like all marriages of convenience, they do not give much of an impression of permanence and remain far, far short of mergers. Parties such as New Era and the Civic Union have virtually no major policy disagreements. But the Civic Union was formed as a breakaway of New Era and with such a small pool of politicos to choose from, personality clashes abound.

Similarly with For The Good Of Latvia. Andris Skele of the People’s Party and Ainars Slesers of the Latvia First/Latvian Way Party (which despite its name actually IS a merged party) are both oligarchs, both cynical populists and both either unaware or uncaring of how deeply they are loathed by most of the population. Probably their overgrown egos are the main things keeping them from a full-on act of union. For the record Skele now needs Slesers much more than Slesers needs Skele.

Their election strategy is basically to pretend they had nothing to do with Latvia’s catastrophic “fat years” rather than being major architects of the bubble economy. Maybe the populace is stupid enough to swallow their ridiculous promises yet again (already we have had classics such as “1,000 lats for everyone when they become an adult” and “families with three kids pay no income tax”) but I don’t believe Latvian voters are stupid enough to believe their hollow guff any more.

Latvians, on the other hand, seem to think they are that stupid. Every time I ask someone what they think of the upcoming election they sigh and shrug. “Nothing will change,” they say, “The same people will be in charge taking care of themselves and not caring about anything else.”

Interestingly this has been the reaction from both Latvians and Russians. Everyone seems equally disillusioned. For all the repositioning and posturing of the parties there are very, very few new faces. The most significant is Sarmite Elerte, former editor of the Diena newspaper, but her aside it’s business as usual.

It’s also true that every party has some good people and some nutcases. The nasty People’s Party retains the services of the extremely capable Maris Riekstins as well as the unappealing Vents Krauklis and buffoon Atis Slakteris. The Fatherlanders have the intelligent Roberts Zile to offset their ranks of boors and bovver boys. And while the Civic Union has my personal favourite, the urbane Karlis Sadurskis, it also has the preening Girts Valdis Kristovskis whom no-one could possibly like quite as much as he likes himself.

Disillusion breeds apathy, which means no-one much bothers to vote, which tends to mean the results are the same as before, which breeds apathy… and so on. But it seems the general mood really is that no-one can be bothered with politics any more. In one way that is a good thing because the political classes deserve to be taken down a peg or two. But whether they get voted in on the back of a million votes or a hundred, they will still have the same access to power and its abuses.

Calls for “change” are ten-a-penny in political discourse these days. But if Latvia does not seize October’s opportunity to do away with the discredited status quo and set up a Saeima in a different form, it’s hard to see change ever occuring. If an economic recession of gargantuan proportions,  countless corruption scandals and massive migration aren’t enough to prompt Latvians to exercise their right to vote, they already know what to expect: more of the same.