Return to Parliament... after 32 years 0 169

As is known, with the arrival of autumn, the ruling coalition repeatedly faces problems in securing a majority during the plenary sessions of the Saeima. The opposition has promptly taken advantage of this by disrupting the quorum, meaning that opposition deputies would remove their electronic voting cards, resulting in fewer than 50 deputies remaining in the hall, which means that the session cannot continue.

It is clear that the ruling party cannot allow a repeat of such a scenario during the consideration of the 2026 budget in the Saeima. After all, if the majority in parliament votes against the budget, the government automatically resigns.

Thus, the ruling party began persuading those deputies who have not attended parliament for a long time due to health reasons to resign their mandates. Today it became known that the 71-year-old Andris Vilks, a deputy from the Union of Greens and Farmers, submitted a resignation of his parliamentary powers.

He is replaced by the next candidate on the list, 77-year-old veteran of Latvian politics Janis Dinēvičs! Notably, the last time he was a member of parliament was... 32 years ago! Yes, one of the leaders of the People's Front, Dinēvičs was a deputy of the Supreme Council from 1990 to 1993 and voted for the Declaration of the Restoration of Independence.

Since then, all his attempts to return to parliament have been unsuccessful. Only once did Dinēvičs manage to break through to the Riga City Council as part of the list of his LSDRP from 2007 to 2009, during which he even served as the vice-mayor of Riga.

The goal of replacing Vilks with Dinēvičs is to ensure a majority for the ruling coalition in the Saeima.