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Parliamentary elections were held in Latvia on 4 October 2014. The previous elections were held in 2011, but according to the country's constitution, [1] the parliamentary term was reduced to only three years following early elections (the 2011 elections took place a year after the 2010 elections).
Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. Since its independence, Latvia has been referred to as one of the Baltic states. It is bordered by Estonia to the north, Lithuania to the south, Russia to the east, and Belarus to the southeast, and shares a maritime border with Sweden to the west. Latvia has 1,957,200 inhabitants and a territory of 64,589 km2 (24,938 sq mi). The country has a temperate seasonal climate.
On 27 December 2013, the Reform Party announced an electoral pact with its government coalition partner Unity, with most prominent Reform Party candidates running under the Unity campaign. [2] On 16 July 2014 the Latvian Social Democratic Workers' Party signed a cooperation pact with the Latvian Association of Regions to run under the LAR campaign. [3]
The Reform Party, until April 2012 known as Zatlers' Reform Party, was a centre-right political party in Latvia founded by former President Valdis Zatlers on 23 July 2011. It won 22 seats in the Saeima in the 2011 election.
The Latvian Social Democratic Workers' Party is a social-democratic political party in Latvia. It has a long history but is not currently represented in the parliament of Latvia.
The main party of the Harmony Centre alliance, the Social Democratic Party "Harmony" contested the elections with a separate list, whilst fellow alliance members the Latvian Socialist Party announced on 20 July 2014 that they would not contest the election. [4]
Harmony Centre was a social-democratic political alliance in Latvia. It originally consisted of five political parties: the National Harmony Party, the Socialist Party of Latvia, New Centre, the Daugavpils City Party, and the Social Democratic Party. Through a series of mergers they were eventually reduced to two: Social Democratic Party "Harmony" and the Socialist Party.
The Social Democratic Party "Harmony", also commonly referred to as Harmony (Saskaņa), is a social-democratic political party in Latvia. It is the main catch-all party of the centre-left in Latvian politics. The party was founded in 2010 as the merger of the National Harmony Party (TSP) with New Centre (JC) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP), a breakaway from the Latvian Social Democratic Workers' Party (LSDSP). At that time, all three were members of the former electoral alliance Harmony Centre. The alliance also included the communist Socialist Party of Latvia. The Daugavpils City Party merged into the party in 2011.
Party | Votes | % | Seats | +/– |
---|---|---|---|---|
Harmony | 209,887 | 23.00 | 24 | –7 |
Unity | 199,535 | 21.87 | 23 | –19 |
Union of Greens and Farmers | 178,210 | 19.53 | 21 | +8 |
National Alliance | 151,567 | 16.61 | 17 | +3 |
For Latvia from the Heart | 62,521 | 6.85 | 7 | New |
Latvian Association of Regions | 60,812 | 6.66 | 8 | New |
Latvian Russian Union | 14,390 | 1.58 | 0 | 0 |
United for Latvia | 10,788 | 1.18 | 0 | New |
Latvian Development | 8,156 | 0.89 | 0 | New |
New Conservative Party | 6,389 | 0.70 | 0 | New |
Freedom. Free from Fear, Hate and Anger | 1,735 | 0.19 | 0 | 0 |
Growth | 1,515 | 0.17 | 0 | New |
Sovereignty | 1,033 | 0.11 | 0 | New |
Invalid/blank votes | 6,953 | – | – | – |
Total | 913,491 | 100 | 100 | 0 |
Registered voters/turnout | 1,552,235 | 58.85 | – | – |
Source: CVK |
Following the elections, a centre-right coalition government was formed by Unity, the Union of Greens and Farmers and the National Alliance. However, the government resigned on 7 December 2015.
The Second Straujuma cabinet was the government of Latvia from 5 November 2014 to 11 February 2016. It was the second government to be led by Laimdota Straujuma, who was the Prime Minister from 2014 to 2016. It took office after the October 2014 parliamentary election, succeeding the first Straujuma cabinet, which lasted 8 months.
The Socialist Party of Latvia was formed in 1994 as a successor party to the Communist Party of Latvia, which was banned in 1991. In essence, the party is communist; according to the programme of the party, the LSP was founded as an organization upholding socialist ideas after the 1991 events that the party describes as a 'counter-revolutionary bourgeois-nationalist coup'.
The Latvian Green Party is a green political party in Latvia. It was founded on 13 January 1990 and is a member of the European Green Party. Unusually for a green party in Europe, the LZP is generally considered a centre-right party. Leading politicians of the party have often supported reactionary, nationalist, and anti-LGBT positions. The party has only gained representation in the Saeima by forming electoral alliances with other parties.
The Latvian Russian Union (LKS) is an ethnic minority, left-wing political party in Latvia, supported mainly by ethnic Russians and other Russian-speaking minorities. The co-chairpersons of the Latvian Russian Union are Miroslav Mitrofanov, Yuriy Petropavlovsky and Tatjana Ždanoka.
This article gives an overview of liberalism in Latvia. It is limited to liberal parties with substantial support, mainly proved by having had a representation in the Saeima. The sign ⇒ denotes another party in that scheme. For inclusion in this scheme it isn't necessary so that parties labelled themselves as a liberal party.
The Latvian Farmers' Union is a centrist, agrarian political party in Latvia.
Parliamentary elections were held in Latvia on 7 October 2006. The governing coalition, led by Prime Minister Aigars Kalvītis and his People's Party, won the election. Kalvitis's government thus became the first to be re-elected since Latvia had regained independence in 1991.
Communist Party of Latvia was a political party in Latvia.
Parliamentary elections were held in Latvia on 2 October 2010. It was the first parliamentary election to be held in Latvia since the beginning of the economic crisis during which Latvia had experienced one of the deepest recessions in the world.
Responsibility – Social Democratic Alliance of Political Parties is a political coalition in Latvia, until 2010 called Libertas.lv, which was the local branch of Declan Ganley's Libertas Party. Unlike Libertas in other countries, Libertas Latvia was not a political party in its own right. Instead, candidates from Mūsu Zeme, Sociālā Taisnīguma Partija and Latvijas Atmoda contended the 2009 European Parliament elections in Latvia under common lists branded with the Libertas identity. The candidates retained their membership of their national parties and the national parties retained their legal identity.
Parliamentary elections were held in Latvia on 6 October 2018.
New Unity is a liberal-conservative political party in Latvia. It is currently the largest party of the centre-right in Latvian politics and was the leading party in the Dombrovskis and Straujuma cabinets from its inception in 2010 until February 2016 and is a member of the current coalition since January 2019 with its member Krišjānis Kariņš as Prime Minister. Unity is a member of the European People's Party (EPP).
The National Alliance, officially the National Alliance "All For Latvia!" – "For Fatherland and Freedom/LNNK", abbreviated to NA, is a right-wing populist, national-conservative political party in Latvia. With thirteen seats in the Saeima, the National Alliance is the fourth-largest party in the national parliament and the third-largest party in the government. The party is a coalition of conservatives, Latvian ethnonationalists, and economic liberals.
Early parliamentary elections were held in Latvia on 17 September 2011, following the country's first parliamentary dissolution referendum held on 23 July 2011. The previous parliamentary election was only held in October 2010.
United for Latvia is a populist and economically liberal political party in Latvia. It was founded in 2011 in Rēzekne and in 2013 Ainārs Šlesers became party chairman. Šlesers has been dubbed one of the three "oligarchs" prominent in Latvian politics, and United for Latvia marks his return to electoral politics. He was previously leader of Latvia's First Party/Latvian Way and has served in several governments of Latvia including as Deputy Prime Minister in the government of Aigars Kalvītis and Minister of Transport in the second government of Ivars Godmanis, both of whom are party members. Other formerly prominent Latvian politicians who are now party members include Jānis Jurkāns and Jānis Straume. The party is yet to win seats in the Saeima or the European Parliament. Šlesers and several other party members have been in the past among the Latvian politicians most willing to cooperate with Harmony and other Russian parties in Latvia.
Movement For! is a liberal political party in Latvia. The party was founded on 26 August 2017 at the House of Culture Rītausma in Riga with 298 party members. The party is one of the members of the Development/For! alliance.
The Progressives is a social democratic political party in Latvia. The party was founded on February 25, 2017. Since February 24, 2018, its chairman has been Roberts Putnis. The Progressives currently do not hold any seats in the Saeima or in the European Parliament.