Kulbergs takes 41 Saeima seats, the strongest Latvian result since 1991

Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs' United List won 41 of the 100 seats in Latvia's Saeima in the election held on 3 October, the Central Election Commission in Riga confirmed once postal ballots were in the count. The list took 35.3 percent. It is the largest share of seats any single list has won since Latvia restored independence in 1991. The previous high was Latvian Way's 36 seats in 1993. Turnout was 51.8 percent, the lowest the commission has recorded for a parliamentary election.

The rest of the chamber is a short list. Latvia First, led by Ainārs Šlesers, finished second with 17 seats and about 13.1 percent, up eight seats, and did best among Russian-speaking voters. Sovereign Power took 15 seats and is new to the Saeima. The National Alliance took 10 seats and 8.9 percent, close to its 2022 share of 9.3 percent and down three seats. The Progressives took 10. New Unity, Jaunā Vienotība, fell to 7 seats from a much larger 2022 bloc. The Union of Greens and Farmers missed the 5 percent threshold. Six lists will sit. President Edgars Rinkēvičs, who hands the mandate to form a government, planned to meet party representatives on Monday.

Kulbergs said on X that he would carry the result with full seriousness. His party said it would open coalition talks with its existing partners first. Of the three parties in the last coalition, two returned: the National Alliance and New Unity. With United List's 41, those two add 17, for 58 seats. He ruled out a deal with Latvia First and with Sovereign Power, the two lists that gained among Russian-speaking voters and that sit, in European labels, with the Patriots and outside the government consensus on Ukraine. United List joined the European Conservatives and Reformists in 2024. Its MEP is Reinis Pozņaks. The National Alliance is the other Latvian ECR party. Together the two ECR lists have 51 seats before New Unity is added.

The arithmetic is comfortable and the turnout is not. Fifty-eight seats is a majority of eight, enough to pass a budget and a government if the three lists hold. It is not enough to amend the constitution, which needs a larger majority, or to ignore a National Alliance walkout. The 51.8 percent turnout means the 41 seats rest on a thinner slice of the electorate than any previous winner. Latvia First's 17 seats, built in the cities and towns where Russian is the home language, are the opposition core he has refused. A government that will not talk to that bloc governs without the largest minority's preferred lists. That has been Latvian practice since the 1990s. It is sharper when those lists hold 32 seats between them.

Foreign policy is the point of agreement he cited. United List, the National Alliance and New Unity all back EU and NATO membership and aid to Ukraine. Latvia shares a border with Russia and with Belarus and hosts NATO forces. A coalition of 58 that agrees on that file can keep the existing line on defence spending and on the eastern frontier. It does not need Latvia First for those votes, which is why the exclusion is cheap on paper. The cost shows up in Riga municipal politics and in any later argument about language law and schools, where the 32 seats can block a mood even when they cannot block a bill.

Rinkēvičs' meetings on Monday start the formal clock. Convention is that the largest list is asked first. Kulbergs is already prime minister, so the likely result is a second cabinet with a larger seat share and one fewer coalition partner, the Greens and Farmers having fallen below the threshold. The number that will be cited in Brussels is 41. The number that limits what those 41 can claim is 51.8.