Quiz Revisits Latvia's First Post-Independence Saeima Election
LSM has put together a trivia quiz about the 1993 election of Latvia's 5th Saeima, which for most citizens was the first parliamentary vote of their lifetime.
In 1993, Latvia reached a major historical milestone when the 5th Saeima was elected, marking the first time most citizens had ever cast a vote in a parliamentary election. The previous occasion when residents had been able to choose their legislature was back in the autumn of 1931.
Between those two elections lay a 62-year gap during which the country had no democratically elected legislature. The long interruption began with Kārlis Ulmanis's authoritarian coup, which brought the parliamentary era to an end. The break was then dramatically extended by the occupations of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, periods during which free and democratic elections were simply impossible.
It was only after the restoration of independence that Latvian citizens regained, in 1993, the chance to take part in parliamentary elections and choose their representatives in the Saeima. The vote represented a return to the democratic governing traditions that had existed before the authoritarian regime and the decades of occupation.
A quiz to mark the anniversary
To mark this historical anniversary, the LSM news portal has created a trivia quiz inviting readers to refresh their memory of events from 33 years ago. The quiz also touches on the political atmosphere of the period and on concepts that were widely discussed at the time, including matters linked to politician Joahims Zīgerists and themes from the election campaign. The aim is to give interested readers a chance to test and deepen their knowledge of Latvia's political history during the restoration of independence, including the country's first democratic transfer of power after nearly six decades without one.
