For Human Rights in United Latvia
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Template:Politics of Latvia Par Cilvēka Tiesībām Vienotā Latvijā (abbreviated PCTVL, For Human Rights in United Latvia) is an alliance of several political parties in Latvia, supported mainly by Russian-speaking Latvians.
PCTVL emphasizes issues important to the Russian community. It supports Russian as a second official language in Latvia and requests to grant Latvian citizenship to all residents of Latvia. It supports stronger ties with Russia and was only major political organization to oppose Latvia's membership in NATO. Economic issues are less emphasized but PCTVL's economic positions tend to be left-wing.
PCTVL was established in May 1998 by three political parties: Tautas Saskaņas Partija (People's Harmony Party), Līdztiesība (Equal Rights) and Latvijas Sociālistiskā Partija (Socialist Party of Latvia), all of which were mainly supported by Russian-speaking voters. They won 16 out of 100 seats in 1998 elections and 25 seats in 2002 elections and municipal elections in 2001, winning 13 out of 60 seats in Riga city council. After the municipal elections, PCTVL became a part of Riga's city government and its member Sergejs Dolgopolovs became the vice-mayor of Riga. As of June 2004, it has always been in the opposition on the national level.
During this period, PCTVL's most prominent leaders were Jānis Jurkāns, Alfrēds Rubiks and Tatyana Zhdanok. Rubiks and Zhdanok were previously prominent as the leaders of Latvian Communist Party and anti-independence movement in Latvia in early 1990s. They are fairly popular in the Russian community but very unpopular among ethnic Latvians. This is one of reasons of PCTVL remaining in the opposition nationally, because any other party could face a massive backlash from their ethnically Latvian voters if they entered into a coalition with Rubiks and Zdanok.
PCTVL partially broke up in 2003. Tautas Saskaņas Partija was the first to leave the alliance and Latvijas Sociālistiskā Partija followed half a year later. Riga's vice-mayor Sergejs Dolgopolovs also left the alliance and plans to start a new political party. The remnant of PCTVL has only 6 members of the Latvian parliament (out of 25 that the alliance had before the breakup) but, according to public opinion polls, is more popular than any of the parties that left the alliance.
PCTVL has not allied itself with any of the European parties in the European Parliament but it plans to work together with the left, minority, green and regional parties. It has also proposed the idea of a Europe-wide party of ethnic Russians. PCTVL supports a federal Europe, with a "common economical and political space from Lisbon to Vladivostok". Its first MEP Tatjana Ždanoka appears to affiliate with the Greens/EFA grouping in the European Parliament [1] (http://wwwdb.europarl.eu.int/ep6/owa/whos_mep.data?ipid=0&ilg=EN&iucd=28619&ipolgrp=Verts/ALE&ictry=.&itempl=&ireturn=&imode=).
External link
- Official site (http://www.pctvl.lv) — in Russian; Latvian and English onlyfr:“Par cilvēka tiesībām vienotā Latvijā”