Talk:Awakening (political party)

not left-wing/centre-left

This party is not left-wing. That is an error reported by many foreign news agencies that are no doubt just parroting an error made in an initial wire service report. The party leader/founder had previously been appointed auditor general by a conservative prime minister and confirmed by a conservative parliament. In addition, Latvian Wiki lists it as conservative. Furthermore, I have seen commentators suggest the party's success is partially due to conservative Russians who didn't like the Harmony was putting social democracy before Russian civil rights. The Secretary of Funk (talk) 20:11, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

I should add though that I see no reason to assume they are primarily a Russian/Russian issues party either. They're just a conservative party which isn't anti-Russian and may have a few Russian members. The Secretary of Funk (talk) 04:23, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

I removed the claim that the party's ideology is Russian minority politics. Looking at list of candidates, an overwhelming majority have Latvian names. Also, this seems to be based on the same Guardian article that claimed the party is left-wing. Also, the article only claimed that the party is mainly supported by Russians -- even if true, that doesn't necessarily imply that's a central part of its ideology. Since there are contradicting claims about the ideology, probably more sources would be needed. User332572385 (talk) 15:59, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

I would imagine all the candidates have Latvian names. The same would be true of Harmony and the Latvian Russian Union. All names are Latvianized for official purposes like elections. Regardless, I have heard that they have some Russian members. I don't know for sure but they probably do. That doesn't mean they are primarily a Russian issues party though. As to their real ideology, I have provided a link to an interview with the party leader where she explicitly states they are conservative. I can't seem to format it right though because I'm stupid. The Secretary of Funk (talk) 00:49, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

"Some western media outlets have mistakenly identified this party as being left-wing." The cited WSJ article was written by lv:Juris Kaža who is Latvian. We can assume that he is not totally ignorant of Latvian politics and just copying some erroneous agency report. Campaigning for higher wages and pensions would indeed be considered left-wing in most countries. The classification as conservative is only based on Sudraba's interview statement that her party respresented "a socially responsible state, based on conservative values" (which is very vague and pretty much every moderate politician could have said. In other European countries, social democrats and greens have claimed to protect "conservative values" as well, still they are social democrats or greens and not conservatives.) It is a very new party, as far as I can see there are no classifications by political scientists yet (are there?) Given that it may not yet have a defined ideological profile, we should not label it as a conservative party in the affirmative, but simply report what the sources say: that its leader claims to represent "social responsibility" and "conservative values" and that it also promised higher wages and pensions, leading to some media considering it leftist. We should wait and see how the party will develop and in which category political scientists will put it in future publications. --RJFF (talk) 16:29, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Every party is for higher wages and pensions. Those are platitudes, not policy stances. The Secretary of Funk (talk) 02:13, 13 October 2014 (UTC)