A child poses for a photo in Riga, Latvia
RIGA, Oct 2 (NNN-Xinhua) — Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins’ center-right party New Unity on Saturday won the Baltic country’s parliamentary elections, an exit poll conducted by the research center SKDS showed.
The party took an estimated 22.5 percent of the votes, according to the exit poll.
A new center-right alliance, the United List, emerged as the runner-up with 11.5 percent, and the Union of Greens and Farmers came close third with 10.9 percent, the exit poll also showed.
Five more political parties appeared to have received more than 5 percent of votes, a threshold to get seats in parliament: the right-wing National Alliance with 8.4 percent, the Progressives with 8.3 percent, For Stability with 5.4 percent, Latvia First with 5.3 percent, and Development/For with 5.2 percent
Karins, who is also a US citizen, has led a dramatic turnaround for his party, which was the smallest to enter parliament in elections four years ago.
Karins may be able to create a majority-backed ruling coalition with three other like-minded parties. The exit poll showed eight political groups winning seats in parliament.
Born in Delaware, US to parents who fled Latvia when the country was forcibly absorbed into the Soviet Union following World War II, Karins moved to Riga in 1997 after getting a PhD in linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania.
Since Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in February, Karins’s party has been one of the EU’s most vocal advocates of tightening sanctions. He has called on NATO to bolster its eastern flank, including Latvia’s 214-kilometer (132-mile) border with Russia. — NNN-XINHUA
