2018 Latvian parliamentary election


Parliamentary elections were held in Latvia on 6 October 2018. Following the elections, a coalition government was formed by Who owns the state?, the New Conservative Party, Development/For!, the National Alliance and New Unity. Despite being from the smallest party, Arturs Krišjānis Kariņš of New Unity was chosen as Prime Minister.

Background

The 2014 elections saw Social Democratic Party "Harmony" emerge as the largest party. Although the largest party, Harmony has not participated in the government. A coalition was formed by Unity, the Union of Greens and Farmers and the National Alliance with Laimdota Straujuma as Prime Minister. On 7 December 2015 she resigned after increasing tensions within the ruling coalition. Following her resignation and several scandals around the Unity leader Solvita Āboltiņa, opinion polls showed a rapid decrease of support for Unity. On 13 January 2016 Māris Kučinskis of the Union of Greens and Farmers was nominated to be the next Prime Minister by President Raimonds Vējonis. His government was approved by the Saeima on 11 February.

Electoral system

The 100 members of the Saeima are elected by open list proportional representation from five multi-member constituencies between 13 and 32 seats in size. Seats are allocated using the Sainte-Laguë method with a national electoral threshold of 5%.

Electoral alliances

The Movement For! and Latvian Development contested the election in the Development/For! alliance, formed on 20 April 2018.
The Social Democratic Workers' Party, the Christian Democratic Union and contested the election as the electoral list, the memorandum of which was signed by the leaders of the parties on 28 March 2018.
The long-standing alliance of the Latvian Farmers' Union and the Green Party continued.
Unity formed an association in April 2018 with several regional parties under the New Unity alliance. The involved parties are the Kuldīga County Party, For Valmiera and Vidzeme and parties, joined by the Jēkabpils Regional Party. The, after a period of consideration, joined the alliance in July, although its Daugavpils chapter allied itself with The Progressives. The Progressives and Movement For! declined invitations to join the list.

Disqualifications

The Central Election Commission of Latvia used its powers to remove eight candidates from submitted lists. It did so after receiving notification from the Interior Ministry that the individuals in question were disqualified from election to the Saeima under the country's election law. The eight candidates were Aivars Zablockis and Nikolajs Žeļezņakovs, Zigfrīds Laicāns and Valdis Taupmanis, Edgars Krūmiņš, Katrīna Brandala, Aivars Silinieks and Tatjana Ždanoka. Ždanoka has been barred in the past as Latvian courts have found that she was a member of the Communist Party of Latvia after 31 January 1991, making her ineligible. The Election Commission additionally sought information from the Security Police and the Constitution Protection Bureau to confirm her ineligibility.

Prime Minister candidates

Leading candidate by constituency

Other parties

Graphical summary

Results

Coalition talks

Political leaders met on 18 October with the president Raimonds Vējonis. Although they failed to agree on a name for a Prime Minister, they reiterated their intention to form a coalition government and to exclude Harmony from any coalition, even if it required forming a coalition of five or six parties.
On 14 November 2018, Development/For!, National Alliance and New Unity pulled out of coalition talks with the New Conservative Party and KPV LV, making a five-way centre-right coalition government infeasible. In December it was announced that coalition talks would continue into January.
On 7 January, Vējonis nominated Krišjānis Kariņš of New Unity to form a government. On 23 January 2019, the Kariņš cabinet was established.