Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins, a staunch critic of Vladimir Putin, won a decisive victory in general elections as voters punished a party backed by ethnic Russians, an exit poll showed.
Bolstered by its vocal opposition of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Karins’s New Unity won 16.8% of the vote, according partial results showing 540 of the total 1,055 voting stations counted. An exit poll released earlier showed New Unity winning 22.5%, almost twice as much as the next party.
Harmony, a group that won the last three elections with support of many Russians who make up about a quarter of Latvia’s 1.9 million population, had 4.1%. If that doesn’t change in the final tally, which is expected on Sunday at the earliest, it would not make it into parliament for the first time.
