The government led by Krišjānis Kariņš, having been in power for 1090 days, has become the longest-serving government in the history of democratic Latvia. The Prime Minister can certainly be proud of this record, but in the eyes of the public, he has failed the test of the pandemic crisis.
This is evidenced by the results of the survey "Trust in State and Public Institutions and Evaluation of the Performance of Politicians and Public Officials" commissioned by Neatkarīgā and carried out by the research center SKDS at the end of each year.
In December 2020, 50.3% of the Latvian population rated his performance negatively and 33.2% positively, which resulted in negative 17.1 points of the rating, but the situation has become much worse over the year. Last December, 66.6% of the population had a negative opinion of K. Kariņš's performance, while only 24.7% had a positive opinion. This proportion gives the Prime Minister a negative rating of 41.9 points, which is 24.8 points lower than last year.
Traditionally, politicians in power - including the Prime Minister - are rated slightly higher by the Latvian-speaking population in our country. In this segment, 31% have a positive opinion of K. Kariņš, while 63.3% have a negative opinion. However, Russian speakers have a much lower opinion of the Prime Minister's work. Only 14% of Russian-speakers consider K. Kariņš's work to be good, while 72.4% consider it unacceptable.
Interestingly, compared to the results of the 2020 poll, the decline in the popularity of the Prime Minister is almost identical in both segments. His popularity among the Latvian audience has dropped by 3.8 percentage points over the year, while among the Russian audience - by 4.8 percentage points.
Filips Rajevskis, a public relations specialist and political analyst, who believes that K. Kariņš is a good politician, attributes his problematic relations with the public to the fact that the content of his speeches is not in line with the government's actions.
"Listening to what Kariņš says and watching what the government does, there is a kind of cognitive dissonance,"
says F. Rajevskis, adding that the inability to restrain the coalition partners in the government is most directly reflected in the PM's rating in the eyes of the public.
A good example is Health Minister Daniels Pavļuts, who is accused of overspending money without achieving the expected results. "The fact that he is not dealt with and is tolerated is also Kariņš's problem," the expert believes.
Ojārs Skudra, associate professor at the University of Latvia, points to another aspect that does not contribute to positive ratings. He mentions that Kariņš has problems with grammatically correct Latvian language, which gets on many people's nerves. "Kariņš cannot say a single longer sentence in good, grammatically correct language," says Ojārs Skudra, while stressing that many people do not go into the work done by politicians, but perceive them superficially and emotionally. "I am not saying anything about his professional qualities here," he adds.
On one indicator, however, the Prime Minister as a politician can be satisfied. He is undoubtedly the most well-known cabinet member in the country - according to the survey, only 0.8% of the population has not heard of him. With news of the latest pandemic regulations appearing regularly in the media throughout 2021, he has increased his recognition by 1.8 percentage points.
Even Health Minister Daniels Pavļuts, who has appeared on television and in other media no less than the Prime Minister during the pandemic, cannot boast of such visibility. He is not known by 7% of the public. And perhaps it is a good thing that they don't because it is not inconceivable that otherwise, the negative 43.8-point rating that gives him the status of the most unpopular minister would be even worse.