2022 Latvian parliamentary election

2022 Latvian parliamentary election

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All 100 seats in the Saeima 51 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	59.41% (4.83pp)
Party Leader % Seats +/– JV Krišjānis Kariņš 19.16 26 +18 ZZS Aivars Lembergs 12.58 16 +5 AS Uldis Pīlēns 11.14 15 New NA Uģis Mitrevics  [ lv ] 9.40 13 0 ST! Aleksejs Rosļikovs 6.88 11 New LPV Ainārs Šlesers 6.31 9 New PRO Kaspars Briškens 6.23 10 +10 This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below. Results by region Prime Minister before Prime Minister after Arturs Krišjānis Kariņš Unity Arturs Krišjānis Kariņš Unity

Queue of voters in Riga on election day

Parliamentary elections were held in Latvia on 1 October 2022, following the end of the term of the 13th Saeima elected in 2018.

Electoral system

The 100 members of the Saeima are elected by open list, proportional representation from five multi-member constituencies ranging in size from 12 to 36 seats and based on the regions of Latvia, with overseas votes included in the Riga constituency. Seats are allocated using the Sainte-Laguë method with a national electoral threshold of 5%. Voters may cast "specific votes" for candidates on the list that they have voted for. This involves drawing a plus sign (+) next to the candidate's names to indicate preference (positive votes), or by crossing out names to indicate disapproval (negative votes). The number of votes for each candidate is the number of votes cast for the list, plus their number of positive votes, minus their number of negative votes. The candidates with the highest vote totals fill their party's seats. ^[1]

Seat redistribution

The Central Electoral Commission is required to determine the number of Members of Parliament (MPs) to be elected using the number of eligible voters four months before the election. On 2 June 2022, the Central Electoral Commission has announced the new distribution of MPs. Rīga and Vidzeme constituencies have both gained one seat compared to the 2018 election, while Latgale and Zemgale constituencies have both lost one. ^[2]

June 2022 redistribution
Constituency	Seats	Change
Rīga	36	1
Vidzeme	26	1
Latgale	13	1
Zemgale	13	1
Kurzeme	12
Total	100

Parties

Ballot papers of Riga constituency

Lead candidates

Latvia First became the first major party to announce Ainārs Šlesers as its candidate for the position of Prime Minister on 14 August, during the founding congress of the party. ^[3]

Each of the member parties of the Union of Greens and Farmers proposed their own PM candidate to the party alliance board, and then they would decide on the one candidate for the whole party alliance. The Latvian Farmers' Union nominated MP Viktors Valainis as their candidate, ^[4] while the Green Party kept its candidate secret. ^[5] In the end, the Greens left the Union and joined the United List alliance. ^[6]

Overview

The table below lists parties and party alliances represented in the 13th Saeima. ^{[7] [8]}

Name			Ideology	PM candidate	Leader(s)	2018 result		Seats at dissolution
						Votes (%)	Seats
	S	Harmony Saskaņa	Social democracy Russian minority politics	Ivars Zariņš	Jānis Urbanovičs	19.8%	23 / 100	18 / 100
	K	The Conservatives Konservatīvie	Liberal conservatism	Jānis Bordāns		13.6%	16 / 100	15 / 100
	AP!	Development/For! Attīstībai/Par!	Liberalism	Artis Pabriks	Daniels Pavļuts Artūrs Toms Plešs	12.0%	13 / 100	14 / 100
	NA	National Alliance Nacionālā apvienība	National conservatism Right-wing populism	Uģis Mitrevics	Raivis Dzintars	11.0%	13 / 100	13 / 100
	JV	New Unity Jaunā Vienotība	Liberal conservatism	Krišjānis Kariņš		6.7%	8 / 100	11 / 100
	ZZS	Union of Greens and Farmers Zaļo un zemnieku savienība	Agrarianism Conservatism	Aivars Lembergs	Armands Krauze	9.9%	11 / 100	7 / 100
	AS	United List Apvienotais saraksts	Regionalism Green conservatism	Uldis Pīlēns	Edgars Tavars Edvards Smiltēns	did not exist		4 / 100
	R	Republic Republika	Centrism	Sandis Ģirģens		did not exist		2 / 100
	KuK	For Each and Every One Katram un katrai	Right-wing populism	Aldis Gobzems		did not exist		2 / 100
	LPV	Latvia First Latvija pirmajā vietā	Social conservatism	Ainārs Šlesers		did not exist		2 / 100
	SV	Sovereign Power Suverēnā vara	Christian right	TBD	Jūlija Stepaņenko	did not exist		2 / 100
	PCL	For a Humane Latvia Par cilvēcīgu Latviju	Right-wing populism Conservatism	TBD	Jurģis Miezainis	14.3%	16 / 100	1 / 100

Competing parties

Political parties and party alliances are able to submit their electoral lists to the Central Electoral Commission from 13 July until 2 August. ^[9] So far, four lists have been submitted to and registered by the CEC. ^[10]

In the table below, the number in each box indicates the number of candidates standing on the party's electoral list in the indicated constituency. The maximum number of candidates on the electoral list in each constituency equals the number of MPs to be elected plus three.

Party		Ideology		PM candidate	Constituency						Date submitted	Source
					Rīga	Vidzeme	Latgale	Kurzeme	Zemgale	Total
	Development/For! (AP!)	Liberalism	Centre to centre-right	A. Pabriks & M. Golubeva	39	29	16	15	16	115	13 July	[11]
	For Stability! (S!)	Populism	Centre	Aleksejs Rosļikovs	30	12	10	5	8	65	13 July	[12]
	Social Democratic Party "Harmony" (S) Socialist Party of Latvia	Social democracy	Centre-left	Ivars Zariņš	30	16	16	15	10	87	18 July	[13]
	The Progressives (P)	Social democracy [14]	Centre-left	Kaspars Briškens	39	29	16	15	16	115	20 July	[15]
	New Unity (JV)	Liberal conservatism	Centre-right	Krišjānis Kariņš	39	29	16	15	16	115	25 July	[16]
	Latvia First (LPV) Honor to Serve Riga [17]	Right-wing populism	Right-wing	Ainārs Šlesers	39	29	16	15	16	115	25 July	[18]
	United List (AS)	Regionalism	Centre to centre-right	Uldis Pīlēns	39	29	16	15	16	115	26 July	[19]
	National Alliance (NA)	National conservatism	Right-wing	Uģis Mitrevics	39	29	16	15	16	115	26 July	[20]
	Union of Greens and Farmers (ZZS)	Agrarianism	Centre to centre-right	Aivars Lembergs	39	29	16	15	16	115	27 July	[21]
	For Each and Every One (KuK)	Social conservatism	Right-wing	Aldis Gobzems	39	29	16	15	16	115	27 July	[22]
	Latvian Russian Union (LKS)	Russian minority politics	Centre	Miroslavs Mitrofanovs	38	22	16	11	15	102	29 July	[23]
	Republic (R)	Centrism	Centre	Sandis Ģirģens	39	29	16	15	16	115	29 July	[24]
	The Conservatives (K)	Liberal conservatism	Centre-right	Jānis Bordāns	39	29	16	15	16	115	29 July	[25]
	Sovereign Power (SV)	Christian right	Right-wing	Jūlija Stepaņenko [26]	39	24	16	11	10	100	1 August	[27]
	Force of People's Power  [ lv ] (TVS)	Conspiracism	Far-right	Valentīns Jeremejevs	39	28	16	15	16	114	1 August	[28]
	People's Servants for Latvia (TKL)	Populism	Centre	Edgars Kramiņš	34	17	11	8	12	82	1 August	[29]
	Union for Latvia (AL) Heritage of the Fatherland	Right-wing populism	Right-wing	Māris Možvillo	28	20	12	6	7	73	2 August	[30]
	Progressive Christian Party (KPP)	Christian democracy	Centre-right	Andrejs Krasņikovs	12	4	5	5	5	31	2 August	[31]
	United for Latvia (VL)	Populism	Centre-right	TBD	10	7	3	4	4	28	2 August	[32]
Maximum candidates					39	29	16	15	16	115

Members of the Saeima not standing for re-election

List of MPs who announced they will not stand for re-election in 2022

MP	Constituency	First elected	Party		Date announced
Mārtiņš Bondars	Latgale	2014		AP!	31 May 2022 [33]
Inga Goldberga	Latgale	2018		S	6 June 2022 [34]
Inguna Rībena	Zemgale	2002		Ind.	14 June 2022 [35]
Reinis Znotiņš	Rīga	2018		K	7 July 2022 [36]
Vladimirs Nikonovs	Latgale	2010		S	18 July 2022 [13]
Dagmāra Beitnere-Le Galla	Vidzeme	2018		K	21 July 2022 [37]
Atis Lejiņš	Zemgale	2010		JV	25 July 2022 [16]
Janīna Jalinska	Latgale	2018		AS	26 July 2022 [19]
Ivars Puga	Rīga	2018		NA	26 July 2022 [20]
Jānis Dūklavs	Latgale	2010		ZZS	27 July 2022 [21]

Opinion polls

Main article: Opinion polling for the 2022 Latvian parliamentary election

Graphical summary

Results

The New Unity party of incumbent prime minister Krišjānis Kariņš received the highest percentage of the vote (19%) and won the most seats (26). In a speech after the election, Kariņš stated that Latvia would continue to support Ukraine against Russia and he stated his preference to maintain the current coalition government. ^{[38] [39]} The Union of Greens and Farmers placed second, receiving 13% of the vote, despite leader Aivars Lembergs being sentenced to five years in prison in 2021 and under sanction by the United States. ^[40] The other parties which placed above the 5% threshold to receive a seat in parliament were the United List with 11%, the National Alliance with 9.3%, For Stability! with 7%, Latvia First with 6%, and The Progressives, who entered parliament for the first time with 6% of the vote. ^{[40] [39]}

The wasted vote in this election was 29.09%. Harmony, who had placed first in the previous three general elections, was unable to secure any parliamentary seats, being slightly under the 5% threshold (of all votes, including invalid) with 4.9% of the vote. This has been attributed by many reasons, including internal disputes on the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, pushing away both ethnic Latvians and ethnic Russians. This resulted in much of the ethnic Russian population voting for Stability!, Sovereign Power, and the Latvian Russian Union. ^{[41] [40] [42]} The Development/For! alliance, one of the coalition members, also narrowly missed out the 5% threshold by just 0.03% (with 4.97% of all votes). ^[39] Another coalition member, the Conservatives, also failed to cross the 5% threshold, receiving 3% of the vote. ^[40]

Party		Votes	%	Seats	+/–
	New Unity	173,425	19.19	26	+18
	Union of Greens and Farmers	113,676	12.58	16	+5
	United List	100,631	11.14	15	New
	National Alliance	84,939	9.40	13	0
	For Stability!	62,168	6.88	11	New
	Latvia First	57,033	6.31	9	New
	The Progressives	56,327	6.23	10	+10
	Development/For!	45,452	5.03	0	–13
	Harmony	43,943	4.86	0	–23
	For Each and Every One	33,578	3.72	0	New
	Latvian Russian Union	33,203	3.67	0	0
	Sovereign Power	29,603	3.28	0	New
	The Conservatives	28,270	3.13	0	–16
	Republic	16,088	1.78	0	New
	Force of People's Power  [ lv ]	10,350	1.15	0	New
	People's Servants for Latvia	9,176	1.02	0	0
	Union for Latvia	2,985	0.33	0	–16
	United for Latvia	1,413	0.16	0	New
	Progressive Christian Party	1,379	0.15	0	New
Total		903,639	100.00	100	0
Valid votes		903,639	98.61
Invalid/blank votes		12,729	1.39
Total votes		916,368	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		1,542,407	59.41
Source: Central Electoral Commission [43]

By constituency

Constituency	JV	ZZS	AS	NA	S!	LPV	P
Riga	20.59	5.51	6.91	7.14	9.15	8.59	9.05
Vidzeme	23.46	12.10	12.62	11.39	3.04	5.14	5.95
Latgale	6.97	14.54	5.12	5.78	18.56	6.53	2.46
Zemgale	18.75	19.55	12.42	12.16	3.02	4.56	4.35
Kurzeme	16.44	21.10	22.05	10.25	2.17	4.27	4.80
Total	19.16	12.66	11.00	9.38	6.91	6.31	6.23

Seat distribution

Main article: Fourteenth Saeima of Latvia

Constituency	JV	ZZS	AS	NA	S!	LPV	P	Total
Riga	11	3	4	4	5	4	5	36
Vidzeme	8	4	5	4	1	2	2	26
Latgale	2	3	1	1	4	1	1	13
Zemgale	3	3	2	2	1	1	1	13
Kurzeme	2	3	3	2		1	1	12
Total	26	16	15	13	11	9	10	100

Aftermath

On 3 October 2022, President Egils Levits authorized Kariņš, the incumbent Prime Minister and leader of New Unity, to form a coalition government. ^[44] New Unity explored coalition options with Union of Greens and Farmers and the Progressives, but they fell though. ^{[45] [46]} Kariņš formed a government with United List and National Alliance, sworn in on 14 December. ^{[47] [48]} This government lasted until proposed changes to the make-up of cabinet caused the other parties to pull out and led to Kariņš's resignation as Prime Minister in August 2023. The government was succeeded by a New Unity–Union of Greens and Farmers–Progressives government led by Evika Siliņa, which was sworn in on 14 September 2023. ^[49]

See also

• Fourteenth Saeima of Latvia

References

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