As a result, the so-called "soft" mandate has been lost to Viktorija Baire. Under the Latvian parliamentary system, stand-in deputies can take up the mandates of elected members while they are performing ministerial duties.
Since September 15 of last year, Kariņš was the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the government of fellow party member Evika Siliņa. Before that, he himself had a four-year stint as Prime Minister.
However, Kariņš may be hoping his return to the Saeima is a relatively brief one. He is number 2 on New Unity's European Parliament candidate list for elections taking place in June. The number one candidate is European Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis, who is unlikely to take up the role of an MEP, so Kariņš finds himself in the box seat for a return to Brussels where he was an MEP for nearly a decade from 2009 to 2019.
