New Unity falls to seven seats as leader says result missed expectations

New Unity won slightly more than 6% of the vote and seven seats in Latvia’s 15th Saeima election, a result below the party alliance’s expectations, parliamentary faction leader Edmunds Jurēvics told Latvian Television on Sunday, according to LSM.

With 98.5% of votes counted, New Unity’s seat total is down from 26 in the previous parliament. Jurēvics said the alliance had expected a difficult campaign but had aimed both to enter parliament and to prevent pro-Russian parties from securing a majority. He said both goals had been met, but that the party needed to analyse its mistakes.

Jurēvics said some New Unity voters may have switched to the United List, which he described as the election’s clear winner, because it has the prime minister. He said the role of former Prime Minister Evika Siliņa in the result could be assessed once the vote count was complete.

He said the alliance’s core voters had remained with it, but that it needed to change. New Unity is ready to join a governing coalition, Jurēvics said, but ruled out working with Latvia First and Sovereign Power/Alliance of Young Latvians. He said it was prepared to work with other European and Latvian parties.

Jurēvics said national security should remain a coalition priority and that the government should urgently begin work on the 2027 state budget. Siliņa told Latvian Radio that political cycles had their ups and downs and that New Unity was at the bottom of its cycle.