27 November 2005 4 June 2016 Did not participate Did not participate 24 seats, 23.00% 23 seats, 21.87% | 4 June 2016 2014 Did not participate Riga 23 seats, 21.87% 21 seats, 19.74% | |
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The next Latvian parliamentary elections will be called following the dissolution or expiry of the current Saeima, and must not be held later than 6 October 2018.
Contents
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 (Kurzeme, Latgale, Riga (in which overseas votes are counted), Vidzeme and Zemgale) between 13 and 32 seats in size. Seats are allocated using the Sainte-Laguë method with a national electoral threshold of 5%.