Latvian Prime Minister to resign due to coalition crisis

Latvian Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš has announced that he will resign from his post due to the coalition crisis. He will officially submit his resignation to the president on August 17.

On Monday morning, Kariņš unexpectedly convened a briefing and announced that he would resign due to the coalition crisis and submit a statement to the president on Thursday and that his party would nominate a new candidate for prime minister.

“Currently, the Green Party of Latvia and the National Union “All for Latvia!” are blocking work for the welfare and economic growth of the country. Today, I informed the faction and the board that I will submit my resignation to the president on Thursday,” the Prime Minister declared.

The current Latvian government will continue to function as an interim government until the new one is approved.

There are unofficial discussions that the new government may be headed by Kariņš’s fellow New Unity party member, the current Minister of Welfare, Evika Silina.

Late last week, Latvian Prime Minister Kariņš said he was discussing a potential coalition with the Greens and Peasants Union and the Progressives but would also offer to cooperate with his current partners, the National Union and the United List, in the new government.

At the time, Kariņš said that he had no plans to resign and expected to simultaneously serve as prime minister and negotiate a potential new coalition.

The current coalition partners expressed scepticism about continuing cooperation with New Unity if Kariņš was to lead the government again.

According to unofficial reports, the current Minister of Welfare, Evika Silina of the New Unity party, could become the next prime minister. However, she did not comment on this information at the press conference.

In July 2022, Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš stated that peace at the cost of Ukraine was not needed and that US and European politicians could not afford to “get tired of war”, although the war between Russia and Ukraine was dragging on.

Recently, Kariņš said that Latvia had joined other countries that signed the G7 declaration in defence of Ukraine, including the security commitments made at the North Atlantic Alliance summit in Vilnius in July.