Party ratings for May show plenty of floating voters

Take note – story published 1 year ago

With the next Saeima elections approaching fast on October 1, there are still plenty of undecided voters for political parties to add to their vote counts according to the latest monthly Latvian Television/SKDS poll.

Almost a third (30%) of the electorate remains undecided in May and on top of that there is another 12% who say they will not participate in elections at all – whom politicians will be hoping to persuade otherwise.

In May, when asked if the Saeima elections would take place tomorrow,  the New Unity (JV) party of Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš came out top of the pile with 9.4% support.

In second place is another member of the current coalition, the National Alliance (NA, 8.5%), followed by the opposition party Harmony (S, 7.6%), the Greens and Farmers Union (ZZS, 6%) and For Development/For! (A/P, 5.6%). All those parties are represented in the current Saeima.

Next comes the Progressives (P, ​​4%) who are not in the current Saeima and then the Conservatives (K, 3.2%). Other parties fail to attract 3% support. 

In order to win seats in the 14th Saeima, parties need to win at least 5% of ballots cast (not 5% of the electorate). Based on that, modeling projects that eight parties could hope to win seats; the seven mentioned above plus an alliance of the Latvian Green Party, Latvian Regional Alliance, and Liepāja Party.

But with so little to choose between the parties, it will likely be those floating voters who decide the direction of Latvian politics for the next four years. The proportions of undecided voters and non-participating voters both increased slightly from April to May meaning that more than 42% of potential votes are still up for grabs.

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