Latvia’s ruling party sees female lawyer, current welfare minister as next PM
Silina sees new generation entering national politics
Evika Siliņa, a 48-year-old lawyer and currently Latvia’s Minister of Welfare, was officially proposed on August 16 to form Latvia’s next government as Prime Minister by her New Unity party (JV).
If President Edgars Rinkēvičs nominates Siliņa to form a new government after consulting all other parties in the Latvian parliament or Saeima, she would become Latvia’s second female head of government.
In a brief press conference at JV headquarters in Riga, Siliņa said that the three-party coalition of JV, the social democratic Progressives (Pro) and the Greens and Farmers’ Alliance (ZZS) would have a majority of votes in the Saeima, but she still hoped for a broader coalition. The three party coalition of JV, Pro and ZZS would have a bare majority of 52 votes in the 100-seat legislative body
Latvian lawyer and Minister of Welfare Evika Siliņa nominated by her party to be the next Prime Minister if designated by President Edgars Rinkēvičs. Photo: LSM.lv
Siliņa indicated that she would welcome the centrist-right United List (AS) to a larger coalition and also the National Alliance (NA), stressing that “they have had all summer to think about this and they just have to say yes or no.” The center-right nationalist NA has said admitting the leftist Pro to government was a “red line” they would not cross.
Siliņa’s candidacy will be submitted to Rinkēvičs, who must still hold political consultations with all parliamentary parties and has the exclusive right to nominate a new Prime Minister.
Siliņa earlier told Latvian TV that she was honored by the trust her party faction and board and said her choice represented a new generation coming into leadership positions in Latvia. If she becomes Prime Minister she will replace American-born Krišjānis Kariņš who is 58 years old, and, at 48, she is younger than Latvia’s first female prime minister Laimdota Straujuma, who was 62 when she took office in 2014.
The present government coalition of JV, NA and the AS a grouping of three centrist-conservative parties, fell apart when Karinš efforts to expand the coalition by bringing in Pro and the ZZS failed.
““I will not lead the next government,” Karinš said after announcing last week that he and his government would formally resign on August 17.
A graduate of the University of Latvia and the Riga Graduate School of Law, Siliņa was in private law practice from 2003 to 2012. In 2011, she unsuccessfully ran in extraordinary elections for the Saeima from the now dissolved Reform Party.
In 2012, she started working as an advisor to the Ministry of Interior and served as parliamentary secretary for the ministry from 2013 until 2019, when she became parliamentary secretary to Kariņš in his first coalition government formed after the 2018 national elections.
Having unsuccessfully run as a JV candidate in the 2014 and 2018 elections, she won a seat in the Saeima in 2022, but was named Minister of Welfare in the current, now outgoing government led by Karinš.
The potential new head of government is married and has three children.