In a situation when parties of the ruling coalition still haven’t agreed on a single presidential candidate, “it is possible” New Unity may pick its own presidential candidate, said one of the party’s leaders and Latvian PM Krišjānis Kariņš in an interview to TV3 on Wednesday, the 10th of May.
Currently only two out of three coalition partners have officially announced their presidential candidates: the Combined List has businessman and the party’s founder Uldi Pīlēns and theirs and the National Alliance has Latvia’s current President Egils Levits at theirs.
Kariņš said the time for a compromise candidate is not here yet. In this situation it is possible New Unity may soon announce their own presidential candidate.
It is also possible the party may support the still unknown candidate from the Progressive party.
“There could be all kinds of surprises. Right now I cannot exclude any possibility,” said Kariņš.
New Unity’s representative said there is less than a week left to select candidates. This is a long time in politics, and there may yet be new turns and twists.
Presentation of candidates for the post of President of Latvia commenced on the 9th of May and will conclude at the end of the week. Presidential elections will be held in the Saeima on the last day of May.
A day before the beginning of the candidate announcement process, representatives of coalition said the issue of preferred presidential candidates remains a divisive topic, and that parties have yet to reach an agreement on any specific candidate.
Also read: Combined List party leader says Pīlēns’ election as president will not cause government’s collapse