- Record result. Latvia’s centrist United List won 41 of 100 Saeima seats — the strongest single-party showing in the country’s post-Soviet democratic history.
- Fact. Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs led his party to 35.3% of the vote on October 3, with Latvia First second at 13% and the pro-Russian Sovereign Power third at 11.7%.
- Stake. Latvia, which borders Russia and spends roughly 5% of GDP on defence — among the highest in NATO — now faces coalition talks to extend a government that has made security its defining cause.
Latvia’s Saeima election on 3 October produced the clearest mandate the Baltic state’s parliamentary history has seen since the country restored independence three decades ago. The United List, led by incumbent Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs, took 35.3 per cent of the national vote, translating into 41 seats in the 100-member chamber — a record for any single political force in Latvia’s post-restoration era, according to the Kyiv Independent.
A Crowded Field, A Clear Winner
Latvia First, a populist formation, finished second with roughly 13% of the vote and 17 seats. Sovereign Power — the only party in the election opposing continued military aid to Ukraine — won 11.7% and 15 seats. The National Alliance and the Progressives each secured 10 seats, while New Unity entered the Saeima with seven. The Greens and Farmers Union (ZZS), one of Latvia’s most durable political organisations, fell below the 5% threshold and lost its Saeima presence for the first time in its history.
Turnout reached 51.79%, the lowest ever recorded in a Latvian parliamentary election. The drop was attributed in part to a widening gap between city and rural engagement, though analysts noted it had little bearing on the scale of the United List’s victory.
Security Defined the Campaign
Kulbergs came to office in the spring after a political crisis triggered by a Ukrainian drone’s accidental incursion into Latvian airspace, which led to the resignation of his predecessor, Evika Silina, and the collapse of her government. Under Kulbergs, Latvia accelerated a defence spending trajectory already running at approximately 5% of GDP — one of the highest allocations in NATO. Affordability and national security dominated the campaign, with voters in a country that shares a land border with Russia giving primacy to questions of military readiness over cost-of-living grievances.
Sovereign Power’s 11.7% result reflects a strain of opinion that has persisted across Baltic politics as the war in Ukraine has extended into its third year. The party’s presence in the Saeima ensures that debate over the costs of the conflict remains institutionalised, even without the votes to alter Latvia’s fundamentally pro-Ukraine alignment.
Coalition Arithmetic and What Comes Next
The United List’s 41 seats fall short of an outright majority. However, two of its closest partners — New Unity and the National Alliance — crossed the 5% threshold independently, giving the three-party alignment a combined total comfortably above 50 seats. Latvia’s president was set to begin consultations with party leaders on 5 October. No formal government has been announced, though a renewed Kulbergs-led coalition is the expected outcome.
The result echoes recent patterns across smaller European democracies where security has supplanted economic discontent as the dominant electoral force, as seen in Sweden’s inconclusive contest earlier this year. In Latvia, however, the outcome was anything but ambiguous.