12 people are running in the Riga City Council’s extraordinary elections from the list “United for Latvia” – the smallest number of candidates. The leader of the list, Dainis Vītols, has already admitted that he wants to offer an alternative to the elected and this start can be assessed as an experiment.
The party “United to Latvia”, founded in Rēzekne in 2011, previously carefully prepared for the 12th Saeima elections in 2014. At that time, the leader of the party and the list was a politician and businessman, called oligarch Ainars Slesers. It was not possible to reach the representation in the Saeima – the party won just over 1% of the votes. Shortly afterwards, Slesers announced that he was leaving politics. A year earlier, in 2013, the party “United for Latvia” ran in the municipal elections. In Riga, the leader of its list at that time was the Deputy Rector of Riga Technical University Mareks Zeltins, but in the absence of recognizable candidates, he won only 0.48% of the votes. At the same time, this year the party “United Latvia” gained representation in eight municipalities, mainly in Latgale. In 2017, the party representatives were elected in four places.
The party “United to Latvia” is not participating in this year’s Riga City Council extraordinary elections – only the name has been borrowed from the party in order to run in these elections. These people have called participation in the emergency elections an experiment. This is also confirmed by the relatively small number of candidates – 12.
None of the 12 candidates included in the “United for Latvia” list is a member of this party.
The first number on the list is architect Dainis Vītols, chairman of the board of the Ferado Scientific Society. The Latvian Association of Homeopaths has nominated Normunds Limba, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Associate Professor of Riga Stradins University, a member of its board, to start the Riga elections.
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