December party ratings show plenty to play for ahead of 2022 Saeima election

Take note – story published 2 years ago

With 10 months to go before the next Saeima elections, there are few changes in voter attitudes other than a slight reduction in the number of people who are undecided about their voting intentions and a slight increase in the number saying they wil not bother voting at all, according to the latest party popularity poll from SKDS for Latvian Television.

As usual the party attracting most support is the opposition Harmony (S) party, which has never been in government. It has 11% support among those who were asked for which party they would vote if elections were held tomorrow.

14th Saeima elections, 2022
14th Saeima elections, 2022

Second place is held by the New Unity (JV) party of Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš with 7.7% support, followed by the opposition Greens and Farmers Union (ZZS) on 6.6%, the nationalist coalition party the NAtional Alliance (NA) also on 6.6%, liberal coalition party Development/For! (AP) on 4.5% and the Progressives (P) who are not currently represented in Saeima on 3.7%.

The only other parties attracting support of 3% or more were the New Conservatives (JKP) on 3.4% and the populist Law and Order (LuK) on 3.0%. 

There were no huge swings in popularity with the biggest gainer on the month being Harmony (+1.5%) and the biggest loser being the Greens and Farmers Union (-0.8%).

As ever, the support pledged to any one party is dwarfed by the proportion of the population that is either undecided (23.6%, down from 28.9% in November) or uninterested and not likely to vote at all (19.4%, up from 17.9% in November).

Projecting the responses onto the requirement for parties to attract support from at least 5% of ballots cast in order to win Saeima seats, the figures suggest 8 parties might make it into the next parliament. However, the very large number of undecided voters makes that a decidedly tenuous projection. 

The poll by SKDS was based on responses from 1,818 voters across Latvia in December. The next Saeima elections are scheduled for 1 October 2022. 

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