Berzins faltering: poll

With just six weeks to go before elections, the party of Prime Minister Andris Berzins is losing support and may even fail to win representation in Parliament, according to recent public opinion polls.

Support for Berzins' Latvia's Way party has dropped by one point from July to 6.9 percent in August, close to the 5 percent threshold needed to win seats, according to the polling firm Latvian Facts .

In the run-up to the Oct. 5 election, the conservative New Era party founded earlier this year by former central bank chief Einars Repse was in the lead with 16.8 percent support.

A bloc of opposition leftist parties that draw support from Latvia's ethnic-Russian minority followed at 13.3 percent.

The other two parties in Berzins' center-right coalition, the People's Party and Fatherland and Freedom/LNNK, followed at 10.8 percent and 5.5 percent support, respectively.

The left-wing Social Democratic Workers Party ran just below the barrier to get back into Parliament with 4.9 percent support.

No other party registered more than 4 percent support in the survey of 1,011 residents aged 18-74 conducted Aug. 9-19.

Some 15.3 percent of voters have yet to make a choice of how they intend to vote, with 10.9 percent of respondents saying they will not vote.