Silina survives another vote of no confidence in Saeima

RIGA - The majority of the Saeima today rejected the motion of no confidence in Prime Minister Evika Silina (New Unity) submitted by opposition MPs and based on her government's decision to allocate funding to public service media for Russian-language content.

Silina's resignation had been tabled by the National Alliance.

18 MPs voted in favor of the no-confidence motion, while 48 MPs did not support the Prime Minister's resignation. 15 MPs from the opposition party Latvia First, as well as MPs from the Stability party, did not take part in the vote.

LETA learnt that several MPs, including from the coalition, were on business trips and therefore did not take part in the sitting.

This was the fifth request for the Prime Minister's resignation.

Before the vote, Silina said that the Latvian language in Latvia was being strengthened. Care is being taken in the election of new members of the Public Electronic Mass Media Council (SEPLP), listening to their views.

This year we can see that there is no more Latvian Radio 4, which used to broadcast in Russian, Silina reminded, pointing out that the government has strengthened the national language in education and in the public media.

"We are working hard to ensure that the Latvian language is used," the Prime Minister continued.

In concluding her speech, Silina called on MPs not to support the resignation request and thanked lawmakers for their work in strengthening the Latvian language, including those from the opposition.

Edmunds Jurevics, head of the New Unity faction in the Saeima, pointed out in the debate that this is an election year, so it is likely that there will be many requests for the Prime Minister's resignation.

"In pre-election times this can be understood," said Jurevics, referring to previous requests for resignations from opposition MPs, stressing that they were unfounded.

Jurevics stressed that much had been done by the government to strengthen the national language in society and in the media.

Opposition member Edmunds Zivtins (Latvia First) said that there were many unresolved issues in Latvia, such as immigration. He also blamed Silina for the Rail Baltica project, the shortage of money to repair the country's roads and the low economic performance.

However, while calling on his faction not to vote for Silina's resignation this time because the party would not support the issue put forward in the no-confidence motion, Zivtins noted that Latvia First would prepare a no-confidence motion in the prime minister in the coming weeks.

Svetlana Culkova, head of the Stability faction in the parliament, said that the National Alliance's no-confidence motion in Silina was a good idea, but the Russian language was not the problem, there were other problems in Latvia, such as immigration.

Edvins Snore (National Alliance) pointed out that when opening the website of the Latvian Public Service Media (LSM), content in Russian still appears there, although according to the National Security Concept it was planned that from this year it would no longer be there.

Snore was under the impression that Latvian media policy was being made not in Riga but in Moscow, as the contradictions with national and security interests were becoming more frequent and blatant.

Andris Suvajevs, head of the Progressives' parliament faction, admitted that in recent weeks he has seen more and more comments by current and future politicians about LSM, aimed at discrediting its work. Therefore, he said, such a demand for the government's resignation in relation to the editorial policy of the public service media was "not an innocent political move, but an extremely significant step in this election year".

The National Alliance refers to the National Security Concept, which was adopted in 2023 and stipulates public service media content only in Latvian and languages belonging to the European culture space from January 1, 2026, with the aim of creating a unified information space, based on Latvian and other languages of the member states of the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA), as well as EU and candidate countries. The financing of Russian-language content by the state should cease, while Russian-language content can continue to exist in commercial media.

The National Alliance says that the government continues to provide financing to public service media for the creation of content in Russian, which contradicts the aim of promoting all Latvian citizens' belonging to a single information space.

"We believe that the content in minority languages referred to in the Law on Public Electronic Mass Media and Administration Thereof should not be produced only in Russian and that these legal provisions do not contradict the provisions of the National Security Concept," the National Alliance said.

The draft decision prepared by the opposition lawmakers is included in the agenda of a Saeima sitting slated for next Thursday, January 15.

As reported, opposition parties in the Saeima tabled four no confidence motions in Silina last year, but she survived all four votes.

The last vote was held in October last year. At that time, 46 MPs voted against Silina's resignation, 38 voted in favor, and one lawmaker abstained.