As Latvians Vote, Undoing Soviet Legacy Is Uppermost : Baltics: Only 60% of the small nation’s residents can cast ballots. The rest--most of them ethnic Russians--are not deemed citizens.

The unemployed schoolteacher drummed her heels nervously against the wooden benches of Riga City Hall last week as she waited to take an exam instead of give one.

Without a certificate of Latvian language proficiency, Svetlana N. Malashenkova, an ethnic Russian born 35 years ago in what was then the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic, would not qualify for most jobs. Even with it, she will not have the right to vote in the elections that will decide her future.

“It’s not democratic,” said Malashenkova, who passed the test but remains anxious about her prospects. “I was born here. I consider this my homeland, and I would like to participate in the political process.”

Today and tomorrow, this small Baltic nation is holding its first elections since declaring independence from the Soviet Union two years ago. Nearly 40% of all Latvian residents, a majority of them ethnic Russians like Malashenkova, have not been granted citizenship and are not eligible to vote.

The other 60%--three-quarters ethnic Latvian and one-quarter members of other ethnic groups who had a parent or grandparent living in Latvia before the Soviet takeover in 1940--have the right to vote but may find free elections tough going.

As in many former East Bloc nations, the anti-Communist coalition in Latvia atomized after independence. Voters will have to sort through a bewildering array of 23 parties, each of which can field a slate of 20 different candidates in each of five districts.

The offerings include one old-time Communist running as a Communist, many former Communists running as democrats and socialists, a slew of self-styled centrists, nationalists, liberal democrats and Christian Democrats, two Russian parties, one Green Party and two farmers unions.

“We have no idea who half these people are,” complained Vita Viesmale, a Riga waitress.

Making matters still more complicated, once a voter decides which party he prefers, he has two more “votes” with which to influence the party slate. He may give one vote to the candidate he prefers and use the other to cross off a candidate he dislikes.

Those who find this all too confusing can opt for the Fools Party, which has managed to get on the ballot by promising a seat in Parliament to every fool.

One of the best-known candidates is Alfreds Rubiks, former first secretary of the Latvian Communist Party who is running his campaign from jail, where he awaits trial for conspiracy to overthrow independent Latvia and rejoin the Soviet Union.

“Who can be against the universal humanitarian principles of socialism?” he asked a Russian-language newspaper last month. “We will yet be sorry that we have thrown it all away.”

Public opinion polls here are wildly unreliable, but all put Rubiks in or near last place.

However, the polls also show that none of the 23 parties is likely to win a majority of the 100 seats in the new Parliament, the Saeima. A coalition government of up to eight parties is considered likely.

Most of the parties say Latvia’s main task is to undo the economic, demographic and linguistic legacy of the 50-year “occupation” by the Soviet Union. Relations between Moscow and Riga are worsening, as Latvia tries to hitch its economy, currency and identity to Western Europe. Several politicians in recent interviews said they remain deeply suspicious of Russia’s intentions toward the Baltics.

“Peter the Great hacked open a window to Europe,” said Uldis Augstkalns, chairman of the Popular Front of Latvia, one of the leading parties. “Even today there are a number of forces in Russia that are trying to get a window through to Europe again--even if they have to break the glass.”

A major irritant is the presence of nearly 25,000 Russian troops still stationed on Latvian soil. Despite promises to withdraw as soon as housing could be found for the troops and their families, Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin announced last fall that further troop withdrawals from the Baltics would be linked to an end to “human rights abuses” of the Russian-speaking population.

Although several international commissions failed to substantiate the alleged abuses, Yeltsin in an April statement accused Latvia of laying the foundation for the “ethnic cleansing” of the ethnic Russian population. Outraged Latvians view the charge as a pretext for Russia to preserve an imperial influence over its former Baltic possessions.

“It has nothing to do with the Russians living here,” said Foreign Minister Georgs Andreevs, a candidate of the influential Latvian Way coalition. “Their policy as a state is to keep control of Latvian demographic policy, foreign policy--to regulate affairs here.”

Friction with Russia further aggravates the status of the roughly 920,000 Russians, Ukrainians, Belarussians and others who have settled here over the last 50 years.

Thousands of them live in Riga, which since its founding in 1201 has been unwilling host to Germans, Swedes, Poles, Lithuanians, Russians and Estonians.

Even Napoleon’s French soldiers passed through on their march to Moscow in 1812. These days, 70% of Rigans are not of pure Latvian origin.

A 1989 survey found that only a fifth of the new immigrants had bothered to learn Latvian. The Soviet-era settlers, be they retired Red Army commanders or Latvian-born grandchildren of Russian technical experts sent here to build factories, are often called “colonists.”

When the Saeima assembles in July, one of its first tasks will be to decide whether and how the “colonists” may become Latvian citizens.

Right-wing parties oppose citizenship for almost all ethnic non-Latvians.

The Fatherland and Freedom Party platform, for example, calls for “De-Occupation, De-Bolshevikization and De-Colonization.” It demands that all those who “illegally” settled on Latvian territory during the Soviet occupation either be repatriated or depart for a third country.

Andreevs and other centrist candidates would grant citizenship only to those non-Latvians who can demonstrate language proficiency. Andreevs said he would also like some sort of loyalty test and a quota system for naturalization that would keep ethnic Latvians, now only 52% of the population, from becoming a minority in their own country.

Only the two Russian-leaning parties--the Equal Rights Party, for whom Rubiks is a candidate, and the Russian National Democratic Slate--support immediate citizenship for all permanent residents of Latvia regardless of their ethnic roots.

About 38 Westerners of Latvian origin are candidates on various ballots, including Inese Birzniece, a Los Angeles lawyer now running on the Latvian Way slate. Birzniece said Latvia needs a citizenship law that will not discriminate on the basis of ethnicity but that will set the kind of quotas that have long been a part of U.S. immigration law.

“We are not immigrants!” complained Valentina Korchagina, the Latvian-born editor of the Russian Way newspaper. “We live here.”

As non-citizens, Korchagina said, ethnic Russians must pay more for rent and medical care, and they face job discrimination as the unemployment rate rises.