In today’s BNS morning report, SC/Harmony is being referred to as “leftist”. BNS has been known for its somewhat imprecise use of tags, like calling Vienotība “right-wing” 🙂 One explanation is that BNS labelling is a bit too homegrown.
Another aspect is that tagging SC/Harmony is tricky. Centre-left, as they themselves want to appear, is it not, in my opinion. Populist moves don’t make SC/Harmony any more social democratic than any other fig-leaf ruling party in an authoritarian regime. Here comes a paradox. Latvia is a democracy, imperfect and ailing, but definitely not an authoritarian regime. SC/Harmony is, nonetheless, a regime-staged fake party. This is only possible if it is ruled and controlled by a foreign authoritarian regime. Which foreign authoritarian regime it is, is no secret for anyone. The secret is how exactly it is being done, the paradox kept alive and the Latvian political culture upside down.
As to the ideological beacons for SC/Harmony, I guess, one should puzzle out the ideological fundamentals of Putin’s fig leaf church, United Russia, of which SC/Harmony is an adopted parish. Social democratic those are most definitely not. Putin’s party loves to present itself as conservative. It might be so if conservative means backwards, unintellectual, chauvinist, obscurantist to say the least and put it in some sort of ideological wrap. Without the wrap, Putin’s United Russia party is a club of very wealthy people rubber stamping aggressively reactionary laws curbing democratic freedoms and liberties, adopting gigantic military budgets. The party of crooks and thieves, as they say in Russia. Is crookery an ideology?