Latvia Government

Latvia has three government bodies: the Judiciary, where judges are appointed by the Saeima, the Executive, where the president is elected by the Saeima for 4 years and the Legislative, which is the Saeima which lasts 4 years. In case a prime minister resigns, there is always the caretaker government as the parliament negotiates for a new government and cabinet. This notably happened in 11th February 2016. The Latvian constitution, which has had several versions and fully reintroduced in 1993 could have amendments if one-tenth of qualified voters submitted a petition through the president, with two-thirds of a parliamentary majority in support and a referendum as well.

Latvia allows for multiple parties. The country does not have a direct election of the presidency. The Saeima elects the state president. Parliamentary elections in Latvia are done every 4 years on the 1st Saturday of October. It also has local elections of municipal councils. The Saeima often has 100 elected members with a 5% threshold on the proportion representation. The municipal council contains around 6 to 70 members variant on the size of the municipality. Most of the multi-parties often form coalition governments. Since 2009, Latvia has been ruled by the Unity Party who are in coalition with the union of greens and farmers.The Latvian Prime minister is elected by the president. The cabinet of ministers is nominated by the Prime Minister and nominated by the president.

The Saeima is located in the capital city of Latvia called Riga. The parliament is located in the historic House of the Livonian Noble Corporation building. The building was opened in 1867 to be used to house the German Lantags, an aristocratic assembly of Nobles until 1919 when the Latvians gained independence. Fire destroyed the building in 1921 and was reconstructed in 1923. The cabinet meetings in Latvia are open to the general public, and they became the first ever country to offer live broadcasts of their proceedings in Europe starting in June 2013.

Political parties in Latvia must form coalition governments, which means that no one party can be elected alone. Some of these parties include Harmony, United, the Union of Greens and Farmers, and the National Alliance.