Experts assess parties’ crisis decisions in Silgale election game

Experts said the parties shared a desire to reduce tensions but differed over which decisions would achieve that, LSM reported. The assessment focused on New Unity, Latvia’s Development and Latvia First in the pre-election game run by the television programme Forbidden Methods.

Political scientist and University of Latvia professor Jānis Ikstens described the teams’ overall approach as pragmatic. Mārtiņš Vargulis, a lecturer at Rīga Stradiņš University and managing partner of the analytical group PowerHouse Latvia, focused on the consequences of their next steps if the crisis worsened.

Ikstens said the parties’ decisions reflected a common wish to preserve calm while also revealing their different political styles. Vargulis questioned New Unity’s decision to involve the prime minister at the beginning of the crisis, calling it a card played too early. He later assessed the team’s international experience positively.

The experts identified different risks in the teams’ responses to a protest, including an insufficient security assessment and the possibility of increasing tensions through the demonstrative expulsion of an organiser. New Unity’s internal discussion ranged from allowing the protest to expelling its organiser.

Ikstens linked Latvia First’s proposal for the prime minister to speak in Russian to the party’s voter profile. Vargulis warned that the decision could create a precedent for future crises.

None of the teams supported deploying armed units in the city. Vargulis disagreed with Latvia’s Development’s argument that the army would obstruct the Interior Ministry. No team was sufficiently confident to initiate consultations under Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty.

The second part of X Hour in Silgale presented the same crisis-management tasks to five representatives from each party. The fictional scenario began with a dispute over the Russian flag and a person’s death in the presence of police, continued with activities by hostile groups and ended with threats from Russia and drones falling near the city.

All teams received identical situation descriptions and had three minutes to make each decision. Events in later parts were not consequences of earlier answers. The experts assessed the decisions and excerpts from the teams’ discussions.