On Wednesday, the 31st of May, the Saeima elected New Unity (JV) candidate, Minister of Foreign Affairs Edgars Rinkēvičs as the next President of Latvia.
53 Saeima deputies voted for him. The Union of Greens and Farmers (ZZS) voted for him since round one of elections. JV has 26 votes in the parliament, and ZZS has 16.
After their candidate – Elīnas Pinto – a dropped out of the race, Progressive Party decided to vote for Rinkēvičs. The party has ten votes in the parliament.
Rinkēvičs will give his oath and officially take office as President of Latvia in the first half of July, when the term of President Egils Levits is set to end.
There were three candidates in total: Rinkēvičs, Combined List founder and businessman Uldis Pīlēns, and Progressive Party candidate Elīna Pinto.
Pinto dropped out first in the second round of elections – she received only the ten votes held by her party.
In the third round Pīlēns lost to Rinkēvičs. The former received 25 votes in two rounds – 15 from his party, nine votes from Ainārs Šlesers’ party Latvia in First Place, and one from non-party Saeima deputy Glorija Grevcova.
The National Alliance (13 seats) and For Stability! (10 seats) had promised not to support any candidate even before elections. 87 Saeima deputies participated in the third round of votes. Ten of them voted against both remaining candidates.
For Stability! voted against Rinkēvičs and Pīlēns. National Alliance didn’t vote at all.
According to LETA’s archive, Rinkēvičs was born in Jurmala in 1973. He graduated from the Faculty of History and Philosophy of the University of Latvia. He also holds a certificate in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Groningen, Netherlands. He also holds two Master’s degrees in Political Science from the University of Latvia and US National Defence University Armed Forces National Resource Strategy Industrial College.
In the 1990s Rinkēvičs worked as Latvijas Radio journalists for foreign and international relations topics. He then moved to the Ministry of Defence, where he rose to the rank of state secretary in 1997.
Between 2002 and 2003 he was working as deputy chairman of Latvia’s delegation in talks to join NATO.
Between October 2008 and July 2011 Rinkēvičs was serving as then the head of President of Latvia Valdis Zatlers’ chancellery. In 2011 he became Minister of Foreign Affairs in Valdis Dombrovskis’ government. In 2012 he joined Valdis Zatlers’ Reform Party.
He remained as Minister of Foreign Affairs in governments headed by Laimdota Straujuma, Māris Kučinskis and both governments of Latvia’s current PM Krišjānis Kariņš.
In 2014 he joined Unity political party. In the 14th Saeima elections he was elected to the parliament from the candidate list of New Unity.
He is a Grand Officer of the Order of Three Starts, Commander of the Grand Cross of the Order of Viesturs, as well as a holder of NATO and multiple awards from Latvia’s allies.
Also read: Latvia’s Union of Greens and Farmers to decide who to vote for on Election Day