A party mainly backed by ethnic Russians won the largest number of votes in Latvia’s parliamentary elections this weekend, but is likely to be shut out of government after fears over a resurgent Kremlin dominated the campaign.

The Harmony party, led by the mayor of Riga, Nil Ushakov, won 23% of the votes in the elections, while the coalition of three current ruling parties had 56% between them.

After the Kremlin’s actions in Ukraine and increased rhetoric about protecting Russians abroad, there have been concerns among the Latvian elite that the country’s large Russian-speaking minority could be used to give Moscow a foothold in the small Baltic state.

Harmony favours closer ties with Moscow, while maintaining Latvia’s Nato and EU membership, and Ushakov raised eyebrows in Riga with a visit to Moscow recently during which he proclaimed that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, was “the best option that Latvia can hope for” in the current political climate.

The election result shows that Ushakov’s attempts to reach beyond his traditional ethnic Russian base and appeal to a broader electorate have failed.

The results will give Harmony 25 seats in Latvia’s 100-seat parliament, six fewer than they had before the elections, when they were also the largest single party in parliament. Other parties, however, were reluctant to enter a coalition with what is seen as the “Russian party”.

“Putting the current votes for the coalition in the preliminary results together, it has convincingly acquired a majority,” Latvia’s president, Andris Berzins, said on Sunday in a televised address.

The parties will now have a week in which to enter negotiations, with a similar configuration to the current parliament the most likely outcome.

“It was a victory for the coalition,” said Ojars Kalnins, an MP with the Unity party, represented by the current prime minister, Laimdota Straujuma, who may well continue in the job. “It’s a good indication that we should be able to put together a similar government.”

Kalnins said that Ushakov, who has been a popular mayor of Riga and whose party has more leftwing political views than the ruling parties, failed to win support among ethnic Latvian voters.

“Before the Ukraine crisis and the Russian change in behaviour, he was making inroads at least with more leftwing Latvians,” Kalnins said. “But by taking a passive position on the Russian aggression in Ukraine, he strengthened support among his core voting group but lost a lot of people who expected something stronger from him.”

A third of Latvia’s population is Russian-speaking, but about 280,000 are “non-citizens” of the country, holding special passports that bar them from voting. In order to become citizens, they have to take an exam on Latvian culture and history, a process which Russian rights groups say amounts to discrimination, but Latvian authorities say is necessary given the history of Soviet occupation and forced Russification policies of the past.

Many ethnic Russians in Latvia see themselves as different and more European-oriented than their counterparts in Russia itself, but nevertheless say they are frustrated at what they see as the lack of a political voice.