Harmony party names ex-MP Ivars Zarins as its candidate for PM

• Published date: 18 July 2022
• Publication title: LETA

RIGA, July 18 (LETA) - The opposition Harmony party has picked former lawmaker Ivars Zarins as its candidate for Latvia's next prime minister, MP Regina Locmele (Harmony) told LETA after Harmony registered its ticket for the 14th Saeima elections with the Central Election Commission on Monday.

fter Russia's invasion of Ukraine this past February, Zarins renounced his lawmaker's mandate, admitting that he had been wrong to believe that Russia would not start the war.

"Previously, seeing that war rhetoric was being used to deflect public attention from our government's failures, in an attempt to lessen the use of this war rhetoric and focus public attention on problems in the government's area of competence which it was avoiding to tackle and even discuss, I publicly questioned the possibility of a "big war" and promised to renounce my lawmaker's mandate if the war broke out," Zarins said in February as he announced his resignation from parliament.

s reported, a number of current Saeima...