They are fairly popular in the Russian community but very unpopular among ethnic Latvians.

According to most estimates, only 35 to 40 percent of the residents here are ethnic Latvians.

In 2005 there were 1,357,099 ethnic Latvians, showing a real decrease in the titular population.

Residents acknowledged that they were worried, particularly over proposals to weight republic citizenship rights in favor of ethnic Latvians.

The proportion of ethnic Latvians increased to 62.1% of the population.

In fact, close to half of the ethnic Latvians who received a higher education were forced to seek work in Russia.

The share of ethnic Latvians had fallen from 77% (1,467,035) in 1935 to 52% (1,387,757) in 1989.

In the local elections of 2009, 79.7% of elected councillors indicated their ethnicity as ethnic Latvians, 65.5% were male.

For comparison, in the beginning of 2010 ethnic Latvians were 59.4% of the population (and 71.8% among citizens) and women - 53.9%.

The alliance positions itself as the only political force in the country promoting cooperation between the ethnic Latvians and Russians.