
Latvia - Politics, Constitution, Parliament: Suffrage is universal for all Latvian citizens aged 18 and older. However, as part of the government’s attempts to preserve and increase the dominance of Latvian culture in the face of the country’s large non-ethnic Latvian population, those wishing to become citizens are required to pass a Latvian language test. Until the late 1980s, when several prodemocracy groups united as the Popular Front of Latvia, the Communist Party of Latvia (Latvijas Komunistu Partija; LKP), like its counterparts in the other republics of the Soviet Union, was the only source of political power, under the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.