New Unity has announced that their candidate for the upcoming presidential elections will be Latvia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Edgars Rinkēvičs, as confirmed by the party’s representatives as a press-conference on Thursday, the 11th of May.
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.
New Unity decided the select their own presidential candidate after Latvia’s President Egils Levits announced his decision to not run for re-election.
This means there are three confirmed presidential candidates: Edgars Rinkēvičs, businessman and founder of Combined List Uldis Pīlēns and Progressive Party’s recently announced European official Elīna Pinto.
More on this topic: Progressive Party’s presidential candidate – European official Elīna Pinto