Author: Ilona Bērziņa
New Unity (JV) is very fond of playing the role of the “adult in the room”. But when that “adult” starts behaving like a petulant child, it should come as no surprise when someone else comes along and picks up the toys it has scattered around. For the winner of the 14th Saeima election, hovering on the edge of the 5% threshold is an extremely poor performance. It almost seems as though the political force has been thrown back to where it stood before the 13th Saeima election.
In the autumn of 2018, it seemed that little remained of JV’s former political strength. In the 13th Saeima election, it won just 6.7% of the vote and eight seats – the smallest parliamentary faction. Four years later, with the support of 173,425 voters and 26 seats, the party was back on top.
Another four years on, the situation has turned upside down once again. In an August 2026 SKDS poll, only 4.2% of all surveyed citizens said they were prepared to vote for JV, while a poll conducted at the end of August by Latvijas fakti in cooperation with Faktu logs put the party at 5.9%.
The party would still make it into the Saeima, but instead of contemplating another election victory, it now has to think about how to salvage what remains of its political influence. The fall has been dramatic, and it cannot be concealed behind the fig leaf of unpopular but supposedly necessary decisions.
The Progressives factor
As mentioned at the outset, once JV began behaving like a petulant child, a resourceful “classmate” from another group came along and took whatever it could. That classmate is the Progressives – a party JV initially feared leaving in opposition because the two parties’ electorates overlapped, and which it later brought into government itself.
Contrary to the view that JV’s turn towards the Progressives began only in the summer of 2023, when Kariņš set about dismantling his second government, the flirtation had begun considerably earlier.
Recall the metaphor of four-legged and three-legged stools, when Krišjānis Kariņš began forming a government after the 2022 election and JV considered a four-party coalition with the United List, the National Alliance and the Progressives.
Moreover, JV voters had no particular objection to the Progressives. In an SKDS poll conducted two weeks after the election, 60% of JV voters supported a four-party government that included the Progressives. Only 34% preferred a coalition of JV, the United List and the National Alliance without them. The inclusion of the Progressives was blocked mainly by opposition from the United List and the National Alliance.
After Kariņš resigned, JV eventually got its “three-legged stool” in the form of Evika Siliņa’s government. At the same time, however, JV’s rating fell from 10.3% in August 2023 to 7.7% in September – the largest decline among political parties that month.
JV and the Progressives – closer than they may seem
Following the collapse of Siliņa’s government in 2026, Siliņa herself acknowledged that the Progressives were ideologically the closest political force to JV in parliament.
Both parties are pro-European, pro-NATO and strongly supportive of Ukraine. Both emphasise the rule of law, a Western democratic orientation and investment in education and science.
On social values, JV is much closer to the Progressives than to conservative parties – something demonstrated by the debates over partnership legislation and the Istanbul Convention.
Where they differ is economic policy. JV defines itself as a centre-right party, emphasising fiscal discipline, entrepreneurship, investment, capital markets and competitiveness. The Progressives, meanwhile, define themselves as a social democratic and green political force. Their programme places much greater emphasis on progressive taxation, public investment, social security, affordable rental housing, climate policy and prioritising public transport.
If you are wondering why so much space in a pre-election review of New Unity is being devoted to the Progressives, the answer is simple: JV hoped to take a large share of the Progressives’ voters. Judging by the polls, the opposite happened.
Here is, in my view, a particularly telling example. In a 2025 SKDS poll, prospective Riga voters were asked who they considered the most suitable candidate for mayor. Among potential JV voters, 33% chose the Progressives’ Viesturs Kleinbergs, while only 16% considered New Unity’s own candidate, Vilnis Ķirsis, the best choice.
The fact that a JV voter can see a politician from the Progressives as a perfectly normal alternative to their own party’s candidate is already a warning sign that should not be underestimated. Otherwise, before the next Saeima election, the story of New Unity may begin like an old Latvian folk tale: “Once upon a time…”
Kariņš and the “adult in the room”
The expression “adult in the room” is a long-standing Washington political metaphor used to describe a pragmatic and predictable politician who keeps a cool head amid chaos. In Latvian politics, the label stuck almost perfectly to Krišjānis Kariņš and JV.
Here, another brief excursion into the past is necessary.
After the 2018 election, the largest parties were unable to form a government for several months. Only 109 days after the election, Krišjānis Kariņš – a politician from parliament’s smallest faction, with just eight MPs – succeeded in forming a five-party Cabinet comprising JV, Development/For!, the New Conservative Party, the National Alliance and KPV LV.
The political message was elegant: the election winners could not reach an agreement, so the calm, technocratic Kariņš arrived and put everything in order.
JV secured the prime minister’s office, constant public visibility and a reputation as the party that might not be the loudest, but was nevertheless the aforementioned “adult in the room”.
Climbing the mountain
By the 2019 European Parliament election, JV had won 26.24% of the vote and finished first. Of course, turnout in European Parliament elections was different, and the party had two very strong candidates – Valdis Dombrovskis and Sandra Kalniete – but the political signal was unmistakable: the party was back, and stronger than ever.
Meanwhile, some of the political newcomers of 2018 dissolved, split apart or lost voters’ confidence over the following four years. KPV LV effectively self-destructed, the Conservatives lost support, and Development/For! failed to clear the 5% threshold in 2022.
Against this backdrop, JV stood out as an island of stability in Latvia’s otherwise turbulent and rather murky political swamp.
Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, JV had become the leader in SKDS polling by March. In a crisis, public support for the incumbent government increased, while foreign policy and security moved to the forefront – areas in which JV had both Prime Minister Kariņš and the popular Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkēvičs.
That is how eight seats in the 13th Saeima became 26 seats in the 14th.
The price of arrogance and mistakes
The image of the “adult in the room” has one unpleasant characteristic: more is expected of the adult than of everyone else.
If a party has spent years presenting itself as the benchmark for competence, professionalism and integrity, its mistakes are judged by a different standard. And that became the proverbial banana peel on which JV stepped with remarkable enthusiasm time and again.
One of the biggest scandals concerned Kariņš’s special flights, and it struck precisely where the party’s image was most vulnerable.
In its 2022 programme, JV presented itself in terms of competence, foresight and integrity. Against that backdrop, the findings of the National Audit Office looked particularly damaging: approximately 1.2 million euros had been spent on special flights between 2021 and 2023, including at least 221,566 euros in state budget funds spent unlawfully and 323,688 euros in Council of the European Union funding used uneconomically.
Of course, a scapegoat was found – former State Chancellery Director Jānis Citskovskis – but that did little to reduce the political damage suffered by JV.
Once again, the polls tell the story. In November 2023, when the scandal over Kariņš’s special flights had just erupted, New Unity stood at 11.1% in SKDS polling. By December, it had fallen to 8.3%.
Kariņš “threw in the towel” on 14 August 2023, and just ten days later, on 24 August, the President nominated Evika Siliņa for the post of Prime Minister. She quickly reached an agreement on a coalition with the Progressives and ZZS.
What was done – and what was not
JV does have achievements it can put on its record.
Defence spending in 2026, based on the updated GDP forecast, amounts to approximately 4.73% of GDP; compulsory State Defence Service has been introduced and strengthened; in February 2025, the Baltic states synchronised their electricity grids with continental Europe, ending their dependence on the Russian and Belarusian power systems; and in education, the transition to Latvian as the language of instruction was completed and a centralised natural sciences examination introduced.
Admittedly, the decision to transition to Latvian as the language of instruction had already been taken by the previous Saeima. There are undoubtedly other positive achievements as well.
Now let us look at how several major promises made in 2022 have fared.
Ahead of the 14th Saeima election, JV promised in its programme to increase teachers’ salaries to a level 20% above the national average wage. Salaries have increased, but that target has not been reached.
The party also promised to make secondary education compulsory. No such requirement existed in legislation then, and none has been introduced since.
Another promise made during the previous pre-election debates – to introduce a property tax exemption threshold for a person’s primary residence – also remained unfulfilled.
The promised rapid transformation of the economy and narrowing of the gap with Lithuania and Estonia have likewise been slow to materialise.
Against this backdrop, the wording in the introductory section of JV’s 2026 programme about pursuing politics capable of correcting mistakes and delivering on promises to the very end seems particularly ironic.
Why should people believe that this new “contract with society” will work when previous election promises have been only partially fulfilled?
JV and a spectacular comeback
In theory, it is possible.
One example is Unity itself, which around 2017 had become associated in voters’ minds with political intrigue, arrogance and an inability to address social problems. According to SKDS, its rating hovered at around 2.7–2.9% in June and July 2018, while some Latvijas fakti polls put it as low as 1.5%.
Yet despite disastrous summer polling, the party managed to mobilise voters in the autumn by contesting the election under the New Unity name.
Could a similar leap happen again this autumn? Probably not.
JV is no longer the prime minister’s party, and instead of a clearly dominant leader, it now has a “team of heavyweights”. All of them carry the baggage of four years in government – and in the eyes of voters, it is hardly an appealing burden.
JV can still mobilise its disciplined core electorate and win over some undecided voters. However, the current data offer little indication that the party can repeat its 2022 triumph.
Read also: BNN IN FOCUS | Political party review: A new face, old baggage and a fresh scandal – what is ZZS taking into the election?