ABSTRACT
Parliamentary history of the independent Latvian state 1 started in 1920 with the election of the Latvian Constituent Assembly and enjoyed a period of democracy until 1934. 2 The Second Republic of Latvia, after declaring its independence in May 1990 3 and receiving international recognition in August 1991, demonstrated certain political continuities with the First Republic: national parliaments then and now carry the name “Saeima” and consist of 100 legislators. The 1993 and 1996 presidential victories of Guntis Ulmanis, the grandnephew of the inter-war prime minister of Latvia, and the comeback of Gunars Meierovics, the son of Latvia's first inter-war minister of foreign affairs, bridge the politics of the First and the Second Latvian Republics as well. Some of those bridges are merely nominal and symbolic, but the reinstatement of the Constitution of 1922 in post-1990 Latvia represents a significant historical continuity and has become a part of the current structure of opportunities.
