Voters appeared to back Latvian Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis in a general election Saturday with exit polls showing a strong performance from the incumbent despite his programme of hard-hitting austerity measures, dpa reported.
After polls closed at 2000 (1700 GMT) an exit poll by national television channel LTV and the Baltic News Service predicted that Dombrovskis' Vienotiba (Unity) bloc had won 34 per cent of the national vote.
It was followed by opposition party Saskanas Centrs (Harmony Centre) on 30 per cent and the Greens' and Farmers Alliance (ZZS) in third place, according to the exit poll.
If accurate, the figures would all but guarantee that Dombrovskis will be invited by President Valdis Zatlers to form a new government in alliance with ZZS and a nationalist bloc which is predicted to have done better than expected with 7 per cent of the vote.
Speaking immediately after the exit poll figures were revealed, Dombrovskis told the German Press Agency dpa: "This signals that voters have voted for stability. There is a clear basis for the existing coalition to continue its work, but we will also talk with other parties represented in parliament."
Dombrovskis thanked voters and said the result showed voters had "rejected populism" and that they understood the need for his austerity measures.
"Several parties were calling for scrapping Latvia's international loan programme and promising all kinds of wonders but voters weren't buying it," Dombrovskis said.
Voter turnout looks likely to have just topped 2006's figure of 61 per cent according to preliminary data from the Central Electoral Commission.
Preliminary results of the election are expected in the early hours of Sunday morning with final results due to be announced on Sunday afternoon.
Parties need to gain at least 5 per cent of the vote in order to win representation in the 100-seat unicameral parliament. According to the exit poll the strongly pro-Russia PCTVL party, represented in the previous parliament, had failed to pass the threshold this time around.
Key issues during the campaign included the Latvian economy, which contracted by 18 per cent in 2009, and how to handle the country's 7.5-billion-euro (10-billion-dollar) international bailout loan.