Latvia First offers coalition talks to United List

Latvia First is ready to offer the United List cooperation in forming Latvia’s next government, party prime ministerial candidate Ainārs Šlesers told Latvian Television, LSM reported.

Šlesers said available voter survey results would differ from the final election results. He said the United List had clearly won the election and predicted that Latvia First would do better than it did in the 2022 parliamentary election.

He said Latvia First was prepared to discuss government formation with United List leader and current Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs. Šlesers said Latvia needed an economic breakthrough and described his party’s programme as the strongest on the economy. “If needed, we are ready to sit down at the negotiating table,” he said.

United List candidate Edvards Smiltēns, the outgoing justice minister, said the party would first approach the current coalition partners: New Unity, the National Alliance and the Union of Greens and Farmers.

Smiltēns said the shape of the next government would become clearer once the final election results were known. He said there was time until November 3 to discuss what the coalition could achieve over a four-year term.

Latvia held elections for the 15th Saeima on October 3. Voter turnout was the lowest ever recorded in a parliamentary election in the country.