Ideology
Constitutionally, the party treats the post-1991 Republic of Latvia not as a successor to the inter-war republic, but as a continuation, and considers all acts of the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic as illegitimate. The party opposed the naturalisation of the large population of non-citizens (Latvian: nepilsoņi) that live in Latvia. The party's stance towards the Soviet era lead Guntars Krasts's government to make Latvian Legion Day a public holiday, and its members to celebrate the Latvian Legion, which fought against the USSR and alongside Nazi Germany in the Second World War.
The party is an advocate of the free market. The party's position has shifted over time from interventionism to liberalisation. Originally, the party based its statism on the heavy interventionism in the inter-war republic. Of TB/LNNK's predecessors, For Fatherland and Freedom was more sceptical of the free market, while the LNNK supported full privatisation, within the context of a welfare state and protectionism. After the merger, the party adopted free market economics as one of its main emphases, advocating a swift transition to a market economy.
The party holds an anti-federal, soft eurosceptic position. It was the only party to have flirted with opposing membership of the European Union before Latvian accession. In March 2003, it changed to supporting membership, fearing that voting no would cause the country to lose support for economic reforms and security policy. The party campaigned in favour of accession in the November 2003 referendum.
The party is a strong advocate for the Latvian language. For example, it introduced a law mandating the public sector to ignore communication in any other language.
At the ECRI high-level panel meeting in 2005, Jean-Yves Camus, a French political scientist, has described the party as "on the borderline between conservative right and far-right" and "an ultra-nationalist party comparable in some respect to the far right".
Read more about this topic: For Fatherland And Freedom/LNNK
Famous quotes containing the word ideology:
“We must conclude that it is not only a particular political ideology that has failed, but the idea that men and women could ever define themselves in terms that exclude their spiritual needs.”
—Salman Rushdie (b. 1948)
“Liberation is an evershifting horizon, a total ideology that can never fulfill its promises.... It has the therapeutic quality of providing emotionally charged rituals of solidarity in hatred—it is the amphetamine of its believers.”
—Arianna Stassinopoulos (b. 1950)
“There is no religion in which everyday life is not considered a prison; there is no philosophy or ideology that does not think that we live in alienation.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)