Latvia Ahead of the Elections: A Fragile Center, a Populist Shift, and a Vacuum of Representation

The SKDS poll conducted September 4-16 registered AS, the prime minister’s party, remaining in first place despite a slight decline: its support among all voters stood at 14.4%. SV/JL declined from 11.8% to 9.4%, LPV rose from 8.5% to 9.2%, the “Progressives” fell from 8.8% to 6.2%, the “National Alliance” (NA) stood at 5.6%, the Union of Greens and Farmers (ZZS) rose from 2.8% to 4.8%, and New Unity (JV) stood at 4.3%. When the votes are recalculated only among decided voters, AS receives 22.7%, SV/JL 14.1%, LPV 13.3%, the “Progressives” 10.2%, the “National Alliance” 8.7%, JV 6.8%, and ZZS 6.5%. The September poll showed that 14.9% of respondents do not intend to vote, while the share of undecided voters decreased.

For readers unfamiliar with Latvia’s party system, the main positions can be outlined briefly. AS is a right-of-center force oriented toward the regions and entrepreneurs; JV is a pro-European centrist party that long dominated government; ZZS is a pragmatic agrarian-regional alliance; the “National Alliance” is a national-conservative party; the “Progressives” represent the social-liberal and green flank; LPV is a personalist conservative-populist project; and SV/JL combines social populism, values conservatism, and sovereigntist rhetoric.

The Prime Minister Has Strengthened, but the Coalition Has Become More Vulnerable

The prelude to the election campaign was the resignation of Evika Silina’s cabinet four and a half months before the elections. The formal reason was the conflict between the prime minister and Defense Minister Andris Spruds after incidents involving Ukrainian drones falling on Latvian territory; the political reason was the “Progressives” loss of the prime minister’s support. The president tasked opposition politician Andris Kulbergs with forming a cabinet, and in less than two weeks he assembled a coalition of AS, the “National Alliance”, JV, and ZZS.

Two and a half months after Kulbergs came to power, public trust held: AS remained first in the rating with 14.4%. This makes Kulbergs’s renomination as prime minister the baseline post-election scenario. ZZS rose to 4.8%, but remains much weaker than AS. This is explained by the overlap of their electorates: both forces rely on the regions, the business community, and a pragmatic agenda, and before the last Saeima elections part of their political activists were even in the same party alliance. Now, as the prime minister’s party, AS gains a clear advantage over its junior partner.

JV’s position stood at 4.3% among all voters and 6.8% among decided voters. This gives the party a good chance of crossing the threshold, but it does not restore its former leadership. After many years in power, JV retains a disciplined core that includes some voters from the public sector and the professional middle class. The “National Alliance” rose to 5.6% among all voters and 8.7% among decided voters, while the “Progressives” received 6.2% and moved into fourth place in the overall rating. Both forces have stable niches, but rapid expansion beyond them is not yet visible.

Support for the new political project “We Are Changing the Rules”, led by theater director Alvis Hermanis, stood at 2.5% among all voters and 3.7% among decided voters. Despite this rise, it remains below the threshold. The change of government has not created a sufficient mobilization resource: protest against the previous cabinet was intercepted by the new prime minister, and the “Progressives”, against whom Hermanis campaigned, are no longer in government. Hermanis’s likely failure would mean that, for the first time in a long time, no new political force oriented primarily toward the Latvian voter may enter the Saeima. This concentrates votes around AS, but does not expand the circle of its possible coalition partners.

The September data show that the prospects of the prime minister and the prospects of his cabinet should be separated. To repeat the current coalition, an AS victory is not enough: both JV and ZZS must enter the Saeima. Despite their weak ratings, these parties are the most relevant partners and can serve as coalition “glue” between AS and one of the more conflict-prone forces, either the “National Alliance” or the “Progressives”. If both cross the threshold, the AS-NA-JV-ZZS formula may survive, but the distribution of portfolios will almost inevitably shift in favor of AS, while the influence of JV and ZZS will decline.

If ZZS does not pass the threshold, the three current partners, AS, the “National Alliance”, and JV, will probably lack a majority according to the September recalculation. Kulbergs would then need to bring the “Progressives” back into government, seek more complicated external support, or revise the red lines toward the populists. The most dangerous scenario is one in which neither ZZS nor JV crosses the threshold, while AS, SV/JL, the “Progressives”, LPV, and the “National Alliance” enter parliament. In this case, the winner of the election would find himself between ideologically incompatible blocs, and the coalition-capable center would narrow sharply.

AS’s main task is paradoxical: to win the election without pushing its own potential partners out of the Saeima. Every decision by Kulbergs is now simultaneously an act of governance and a campaign signal. It is advantageous for him to distance himself from previous JV governments and emphasize his own leadership, but excessively weakening JV and ZZS worsens his chances of creating a stable coalition. Therefore, the most likely outcome is not a simple return of the current cabinet, but negotiations over a new hierarchy: Kulbergs keeps the premiership, AS expands control over key portfolios, and the composition of the cabinet depends on which junior partners cross the threshold.

SV/JL Remains Second, LPV Remains Strong: The Populist Flank Is Resilient

The September rating shows the resilience of the populist flank amid a change in its internal balance. SV/JL lost 2.4 percentage points but retained second place; LPV rose to 9.2% and took third place from the “Progressives”. Among decided voters, the two forces together receive 27.4% of the vote, more than one-quarter. This is no longer the periphery of parliament, but an independent center of gravity for the protest voter.

The study “Latvia’s Political Spectrums” places LPV and SV/JL voters on the pole of “tradition and order”, opposite the bloc of “change and openness” around the “Progressives” and JV. At the same time, the difference from more systemic conservatives, such as the “National Alliance”, AS, and ZZS, is not only a matter of political style. Six in ten SV/JL voters and four in ten LPV supporters place the main responsibility for Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine on Ukraine or the West. Conservative mobilization here partly combines with geopolitical revisionism and a demand for “strong order”.

The official pre-election programs confirm this line. LPV proclaims Christian values and the “natural family”, demands the denunciation of the Istanbul Convention, seeks to enshrine in the Constitution the family as a union of a male father and a female mother, and calls for launching an “unprecedented fight” against illegal migration. SV/JL proposes a law strengthening the family, a fight against “ideologies that destroy family values”, a revision of education reforms, the return of Russian as an optional subject, and restrictions on the use of universities to import cheap labor.

These theses rest on real anxieties in society: migration pressure on the Belarusian border, the overcrowded asylum seekers’ accommodation center in Mucenieki, the state’s weak ability to control intermediaries, universities, and employers, and a growing labor shortage.

Of the two parties, LPV is in a more difficult position: the party competes with SV/JL for Russian-speaking votes and with Prime Minister Kulbergs for the votes of pragmatic entrepreneurs. Its rise to 9.2% among all voters and 13.3% among decided voters shows that the party’s core remains intact, but does not guarantee further growth.

At the same time, it is difficult to imagine a new cabinet including LPV or SV/JL. SV/JL’s position on the war in Ukrainemakes it an impossible partner for most systemic parties, while the red lines drawn by the coalition with regard to LPV reduce the party’s chances of entering government even as a junior partner. Yet even in opposition these forces are able to shift the agenda to the right, encouraging moderate competitors to copy anti-immigration rhetoric and increasing the price of every vote when a majority is formed.

The Disappearance of “Russian Parties” and the Problem of Representation

The concept of ‘Russian parties’ in the Latvian context is conditional. This is not about the interests of Russian citizens, but about the political representation of Latvian citizens who speak Russian at home and may assess the Soviet past, language policy, and education policy differently. Non-citizens and Russian citizens do not participate in Saeima elections. Therefore, the disappearance of the former parties is above all a question of the inclusion of part of Latvia’s own citizens in ordinary Latvian politics.

After the restoration of independence, the role of representing Russian votes was filled in turn by “For Human Rights in a United Latvia”/the “Latvian Russian Union” and “Harmony”. “Harmony”, a broad center-left party relying primarily on Russian-speaking voters, repeatedly won elections, was the largest faction in the Saeima, governed the largest municipalities, including Riga, but at the national level always remained in opposition. Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine destroyed the ambiguity on which “Harmony’s” model of representation rested. The party lost the Saeima elections in 2022, and the protest party “For Stability!” that replaced it, quickly fell apart. Its former leader and founder Aleksejs Roslikovs, after leaving for Belarus, left the party and was declared wanted in Latvia in a case involving incitement of national and ethnic hatred.

The September rating confirms the collapse of the old party field: “For Stability!” receives 2.8% among all voters and 3.1% among decided voters, while “Harmony Center” receives 1.8% and 2.4%, respectively. However, the Russian-speaking protest electorate has not disappeared. The main new recipient of these votes is SV/JL, which remains in second place in the national rating. This is an important change: the vacuum of representation is beginning to be filled, but not by systemic ethnic parties of the old type. Instead, it is being filled by a broader populist force that combines social protest, conservative values, criticism of education policy, and distrust of institutions.

The risk of this situation is not that unrepresented Russian-speaking citizens increase Russian influence in Latvia. After 2022, many definitively parted ways with the Russian agenda. The problem is that the discrediting of former politicians has made any discussion of language, school, and political visibility toxic, even in the context of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. SV/JL and LPV offer this audience an image of “their own” politicians: people who speak to them in Russian, and emphasize social closeness. This works for them as long as systemic parties do not offer a policy of inclusion and the Moscow narrative about “Russians deprived of a voice” continues to fill social media space.

In this form, the “Russian question” exists not as a question of the existence of pro-Russian parties, but as a question of political visibility for a substantial part of the country’s population. As long as systemic parties do not explain to Russian-speaking citizens their place in Latvia’s future, that place is occupied by populists through the exploitation of grievance, fear, and promises of protection from the state.

Latvia approaches the elections with a strengthened prime minister whose coalition pillars are weakening, with a resilient populist flank, and without the previous systemic Russian-speaking representation. The combination of these three factors creates the main post-election risk: a personal victory for Kulbergs may be accompanied not by consolidation of the center, but by its further erosion, while part of the Russian-speaking electorate will be represented primarily through a protest agenda rather than an integration agenda.

The author declares no financial, professional, or personal conflicts of interest relevant to this article. AI tools were used solely for translation and language editing; the final text was reviewed and approved by the author.

The views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of GSSC.