Riga ANALYSIS 2018 Parliamentary Elections in Latvia IVARS IJABS October 2018 „ The elections to the 13th Saeima took place on 6 October. All the political parties rep­resented in parliament suffered – in some case dramatic – losses. Seven parties will be represented in the new parliament. Voter turnout was extremely low, at 55 per cent. „ The ruling right-wing coalition, consisting of the Union of Greens and Farmers, the nationalist National Alliance and the UNITY party, suffered a serious setback and lost its majority. All three government parties lost around half of their seats. „ The clear winners in the election are new parties that will be represented in parliament for the fi rst time: the recently founded KPV.LV, which could be described as the Latvian version of the Italian Five Stars Movement; the anti-corruption nationalist New Con­servative party(JKP); and the left-liberal‘Att ī st ī bai/PAR’(AP). „ The strongest force in parliament remains‘Saska ņ a’, the main representative of the Latvia’s Russian-speaking electorate. Its share of the vote shrank from 23 to 19.8 per cent. Saska ņ a will have the largest faction in the Saeima, but probably remain in op­position. „ The new Saeima is more fragmented than ever. The right to nominate the prime min­ister lies with the state president. Multiple coalition set-ups are possible but it will probably consist of fi ve parties and include extremely diverse ideological positions. It remains to be seen whether the newly elected parliament will be capable of producing a stable and predictable government.