Harmony in minor key

While Hungary'sgovernment and its media law remains a stormy issue,Latvia's media landscape is quite clouded enough even without government intervention. Worries about shrinking press freedomhave intensified following a purge in the Russian-language station TV5. This follows its sale by News CorporationtoAndrejs is,a leading figure in the tycoon-heavy For a good Latvia party.

This led to the sacking under murky circumstances of a popular anchorman and producer at TV5, Oegs Ignatjevs. TV5 executives cited falling ratings (link in Latvian). Company documents suggested he was fired according to a staff reduction programme. But others blame Rigas hyper-senstive mayor Nils Uakovs, a chairman of the opposition Harmony Centre.

My bosses asked me several times not to criticise Harmony Centre. It was very awkward, says Mr Ignatjevs. He was not the first journalist to misbehave: in May 2010 news director Vladislavs Andrejevs left TV5 in a similar fashion. TV5 directors deny all allegations in both cases.

Ignatjev's firing is the latest in a series of moves that have consolidated power over the media and forced independent journalists to find work elsewhere; in DecemberAleksandr Krasnitsky,the respected editor-in-chief of the daily Telegraf,was sacked after the paper published a story about a schoolboy threatened with expulsion for slandering Uakovs.Mr Krasnitsky worries that accepting job offers from other publications could jinx them with the same fate as the now-neutered Telegraf.

The big question in all this is how Harmony Centre has become so influential. Despite being in opposition, its magnetic qualities over the media remind some people of the Kremlin's "party of power". Although it is not landing many punches on the governing coalition, it is clearly the most popular party in Latviaaccording to opinion polls.

Oppositionism at a time of economic austerity is always likely to play well. But the real reason for Harmony's good rating may be its role as a receptacle for protest votes, chiefly from those who dislike Latvia's mainstream "nationalist" parties, who have made for the most part little effort to win hearts and minds of the country's ethnic Russians and Soviet-era migrants.

After independence was restored in the early 1990s, the only ideology left standing in Latvia was that of an ethnically-based nation-state. As both Western-type democracy and nationalism were already booked by Latvian parties, Harmony Centre (the name of the party was different then, but the same people still run it) had to offer its electorate a much milder stance towards Russia. Harmony Centre's big task now is to build on that and gain votes from other quarters, portraying itself not as a Kremlin poodle but as a European-style centre-left party. Naughty journalists who interfere with that mission must expect speedy punishment.

Latvian nationalist parties campaigning for the country's language may be playing into Harmony&! #39;s ha nds. In July 2010 the parliament approved broadcast media language restrictions, which required 65% of air time to be conducted in Latvian. Thatforced local Russian TV and radio to change its formats and made them less attractive to the ethnic audience. However the pro-Harmony First Baltic Channel,a branch of the Moscow-run First Channel, does not have to follow any rules. So ratings for the more independent Russophone media are falling, while First Baltic Channel entrenches its position. Does anyone remember the mistakes made by Czechoslovak ethno-enthusiasts in the 1930s?