The referendum is taking place after 183,000 Latvians petitioned for it. For a constitutional change to be adopted, 772,000 have to vote in favor of it on Saturday. 950 polling stations were opened in the country and 85 abroad.
There are 2.1 million people living in Latvia, and for almost 44 percent of them, or 924 thousand people are native Russian speakers. If the majority of them cast their votes in favor of the amendment, it would be passed. However 319 thousand of those people are not citizens and thus have no say on the issue. The draft law was prepared by the Society of “Russian languageâ€. They collected 180 000 signatures in support of the draft law. Mayor of Riga Nil Ushakov also signed the petition.
Latvian President Andris Bērziņš, Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis and Speaker of the Parliament Solvita Āboltiņa called the citizens to vote against changing of language legislation. At least a half of voters need to support the draft law to give a status of second official language to Russian. First results will be announced at night on February 19.
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