Kaktiņš: without Kulbergs, the "Apvienotais saraksts" success may not have happened

During TV24's special election night broadcast, SKDS pollster Arnis Kaktiņš joined other studio guests to discuss the outcome of the 15th Saeima elections, focusing on how much the strong showing of the "Apvienotais saraksts" party owed to its prime ministerial candidate, Andris Kulbergs.

The discussion first turned to parties that performed worse than expected, including the party led by Alvis Hermanis. Host Armands Puče noted that although the party's result, just above 2%, would qualify it for state funding, it remained unclear whether its leader would want to continue heading a party in such a position.

Kaktiņš said he did not know the politician personally and therefore could not judge his intentions, but offered his own reading of the broader election dynamics. He argued that since most voters appeared to want change this time, long-established parties such as "Jaunā Vienotība" and the Greens/Farmers Union (ZZS) may have lost support. In his view, the "Apvienotais saraksts" belongs to the same political category as those parties, but succeeded specifically because of Kulbergs.

The pollster floated a hypothetical scenario: had Māris Kučinskis, rather than Kulbergs, been the party's prime ministerial candidate, the post-election picture would look very different. In that case, Kaktiņš suggested, the newly formed MMN party would likely have taken on the role of the main vehicle for change, potentially securing a solid, though less dominant, result than the "Apvienotais saraksts" achieved.

He also addressed the relatively low voter turnout, linking it to disappointment with the available political options — many voters, he said, struggled to pick even the lesser evil among the choices on offer. Kaktiņš suggested that without Kulbergs as the face of the "Apvienotais saraksts," turnout could have been as much as ten percentage points lower, producing a markedly different election outcome in which MMN would have emerged with a strong result instead.