Latvia’s hawkish centre-right ruling coalition has won a clear majority in a general election, results showed yesterday, after taking a hard line over the actions of Russia, its neighbour and former ruler, in Ukraine.

Victory for the centre-right in the Baltic state, which takes over the presidency of the EU at the start of next year, will bring a sigh of relief from many worried that the pro-Russian Concord party might gain power and give Russian President Vladimir Putin a friendly voice in the European Union.

“The pro-European, relatively predictable, economically liberal course will continue,” Ivars Ijabs, associate professor of political science from University of Latvia, said.

Together, the Unity party, the Nationalist Alliance and the Union of Greens and Farmers had won 58 per cent support with 99 per cent of votes counted, according to figures from the electoral commission.

The former Soviet republic is a member of both Nato and the EU

“Putting the current votes for the coalition in the preliminary results together, the coalition has convincingly acquired a majority,” Latvian President Andris Berzins said on television yesterday.

Members of the US Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team participating in the Silver Arrow Nato military exercise in Adazi, Latvia, yesterday.

While Latvia is still recovering from the financial crisis which saw its economy contract around 20 per cent, the election has been dominated by security issues. The former Soviet republic is a member of both Nato and the EU and has backed EU economic sanctions imposed against Moscow over its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula and its support for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Prime Minister Laimdota Straujama said that Latvians were nervous about an increasingly aggressive Russia which annexed Crimea earlier this year as part of its policy of “defending” ethnic Russians abroad.

“This election is different because of what is going on in Ukraine,” Straujuma of the Unity party said.

“The situation is escalating there again and people are worried what will happen because we have a border with Russia.”

Latvia also contains many ethnic Russians, who constitute about a quarter of its two million population. When the Soviet Union broke up, many ethnic Russians were stranded in the Baltic states and defined as “non-citizens” without full passports. UN figures for 2013 showed that there were more than 280,000 non-citizens in Latvia.

Some fear that the Russian-speaking communities in the Baltics could become geopolitical flashpoints, potentially manipulated by Putin to destabilise the region. Moscow has long complained about the rights of ethnic Russians in the Baltics.