Election officials count votes at a polling station in Riga, Latvia, on Oct. 6, 2018. The Latvian left-wing Harmony party has won Saturday's parliamentary election with nearly one fifth of the votes, according to the preliminary results released Sunday by the election authority. (Xinhua/Janis)
RIGA, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- The Latvian left-wing Harmony party has won Saturday's parliamentary election with nearly one fifth of the votes, according to the preliminary results released Sunday by the election authority.
Harmony has so far been sitting in opposition in Latvia's 100-seat parliament, and compared to the general election in 2014 in which Harmony won with 23 percent, voter support for the party has dropped to 19.9 percent this year.
KPV LV, a party founded by Artuss Kaimins, a parliament member and former actor, won 14.1 percent of the votes in the election.
The New Conservative Party, established by a group of dissenters who split off from the right-wing National Alliance, came third in Saturday's polls with 13.6 percent of the vote.
For Development/For, a new political alliance formed by several parliament members who left the center-right Unity party last year, received 12 percent of all votes, leaving the National Alliance in fifth place with 11 percent, down from 16.61 percent in the previous general election.
The Greens and Farmers' Union, the ruling centrist party of Prime Minister Maris Kucinskis, earned just 10 percent in this year's election in contrast to 19.53 percent in the 2014 election.
New Unity, a center-right party established on the basis of the center-right Unity party, will also be represented in the new parliament as it won 6.7 percent of the votes, according to the results.
All other parties participating in the elections failed to get seats in the parliament, since under electoral law, only those parties that receive more than 5 percent of the votes can receive a mandate in parliament.
