Has Egils Levits' star gone down?

Quoting the poet Māra Zālīte, the dark illegitimate corners of our country have been shined upon for a year and a half by a star - President Egils Levits, whose election to the high office was perceived by many as a prophecy of the rapid growth of the nation's self-esteem and restoration of international prestige. The politicians who elected him say that in Levits they still see evidence of the qualities attributed to him during the pre-election period, but the people are disappointed in the president. Possibly due to the Covid crisis, the rating of the highest official of the country has fallen so low this year that in terms of popularity he can compete with perhaps the most unloved president in the history of restored Latvia - Andris Bērziņš.

E. Levits' sharp decline in popularity is confirmed by the annual survey conducted by the research center SKDS and commissioned by Neatkarīgā, which addressed 1,008 people between 27 November and 11 December last year. After the first seven months of his presidency in December 2019, E. Levits was still assessed in the eyes of the general public with the optimism inspired during the presidential election. His performance was positively assessed by 49 percent of respondents, but negatively only by 23 percent.

A year has passed. During this time, the President has increased his visibility - now he is not recognized by two percent instead of the four percent in 2019. The number of those who do not have an opinion on the President has also decreased by six percentage points. However, unpleasant changes are observed among those who have an opinion on the activities of the President.

Namely, the share of positive assessment has decreased by 15 percentage points during the year, but the share of negative assessment has increased by 22 percentage points. Statisticians, subtracting the negative from the positive assessment, form the ratings of politicians and officials, and this reached a catastrophically low mark for E. Levits at the end of last year - minus 15.

"We started measuring the popularity of the President in 1996, starting with Guntis Ulmanis.

Since then, in general, only one measurement has been worse than this - Andris Bērziņš, when he took over the presidency.

If we look at the ratings, the first measurement took place at the end of June [A. Bērziņš was elected on June 2, 2011] - he had minus 37 points, in July already it was minus eight, but in October it was positive 19,” says SKDS manager Arnis Kaktiņš.

The specialist, who has been following the public mood for many years, believes that the drop in E. Levits' rating is related to Covid. "The context is Covid. This is a time when a large part of society demands strong leadership. Apparently, they did not see this leadership in Levits. Plus, if we take summer and fall, there were a number of smaller scandals. If it is one or the other awkward phrase that is blamed on him, it's one thing. If it weren't for those other things, people wouldn't be looking so carefully for phrases to get hung up on,” recalling the scandal in November surrounding the increase or non-increase of the President's salary, says A. Kaktiņš.

Covid projection

Political scientist Filips Rajevskis also sees a similar explanation for the fluctuations in public mood. "People do not think about long periods of time when giving an assessment, they look at the current moment. The research was conducted in December, so it evaluates December, maybe November - how, in their opinion, the president acted during this time. And the general negation against higher-ups regarding the second wave of Covid and the way it was dealt with is largely projected on the President,” says the expert.

However, F. Rajevskis also points out that E. Levits should take a more active position in relation to the parliament and the government.

"Levits should take a more active role in domestic politics, especially in a situation where there are problems with trust in government decisions and dwindling trust in it in general. This is a moment when the President is very important,” the political scientist points out.

Not denying the influence of Covid on the minds of the population and, consequently, on the rating of the President, Lelde Metla-Rozentāle, a lecturer at the Department of Political Science at Rīga Stradiņš University, is much more critical in her explanation of the drop in E. Levits' rating.

"Covid is only exacerbating the situation. In fact, the hopes for Mr. Levits were far greater than he could justify as a person. He is an intelligent and knowledgeable professional in his field, but as President, he is neither a publicly charismatic person nor a person who is able to address people in an inspiring way. We see that he lives in such an imaginary world of his own, it is difficult for him to get in touch with reality and address the people, proving that he has an understanding of how people live. We expected him to be the president of the people, who would come and understand the life of each person, but it turned out that he was quite far from it. When he tries to talk to the people, it comes off comically and not as people expected. We were really looking forward to something inspiring, but that passed us by. Now we are very unhappy and we say that we do not like it, but the fault is not in him, the fault is in what we expected from him,” says L. Metla-Rozentāle.

Don't regret their choice

The National Alliance (Nacionālā apvienība) nominated E. Levits for the position of President already in 2015. At that time, competing with three more candidates, he lost in the fourth ballot to Raimonds Vējonis, nominated by the Union of Greens and Farmers (Zaļo un Zemnieku Savienība).

In 2019, the National Alliance re-nominated its candidate and this time E. Levits won the full support of the parties forming the 13th Saeima coalition and was elected in the first ballot. And those who elected him still believe that E. Levits proves that he is worthy of a high office, and their hopes haven't been tarnished.

"I think that in this case, the Covid crisis, which has practically dragged on throughout 2020, is really to blame. This can also be seen in relation to other politicians - in fact, everyone who makes decisions is assessed more negatively than those who do not make decisions,” says Krišjānis Feldmans, Deputy Chairman of the Saeima faction of the New Conservative Party (Jaunā konservatīvā partija), who believes that unpopular decisions made by the government and parliament are projected on the President, but he lacks a platform to raise the rating.

"He has some initial rating, and then - especially in these times when there are no public events and only one topic is relevant - it's a question of how he can think about his rating. I don't think he thinks about it.

He is a more ideological person, he defends science, he advocates for the government, the Ministry of Economy and Health to make decisive decisions, but is he becoming more popular with it?”

rhetorically asks the Member who would still support Mr. Levits' candidacy today.

Jānis Dombrava, Deputy Chairman of the Saeima faction of the National Alliance, would also cast his vote for E. Levits today, although he would like the President to be more actively involved in managing the Covid crisis.

"I would call this rating ambiguous. There are enough people who support him, but of course there are enough negative ones. I think this can be explained both in terms of economic slowdown, in terms of various constraints, and in terms of crisis management. I think people expect more involvement from the president and more decisive action. For example, if the President were the one to encourage the convening of Cabinet meetings, nothing would probably change significantly, but the public would feel that the President is more directly involved in these issues and is trying to find a solution. People are emotional enough, and the ratings are negatively affected by the fact that it was during the survey that the president's not-so-successful statements happened, which were not acceptable to the public,” says J. Dombrava.

At the same time, he believes that the formation of a negative rating was also facilitated by the fact that E. Levits "strongly and definitely advocated strengthening the position of the state language, which certainly does not help his rating in the Russian-speaking audience".

According to the data compiled by SKDS, 53.5 percent of Russian-speaking respondents evaluate the work of E. Levits negatively, but among Latvians the number is 46.