Saeima

The Saeima traces its origins to the Sejm of the Kingdom of Poland, which led to the creation of the Sejm (Seimas) of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and later to the creation of the Sejm of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Latvia, a part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, was exposed to the Polish mode of administration and introduced to the Sejm-system. Most of Latvia, incorporated into 3 voivodeships: the Dorpat Voivodeship, the Parnawa Voivodeship and the Wenden Voivodeship, in total sent 6 senators to the Sejm of the Poland. However, the rest of Latvia belonged to the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia, which as a direct fief of the Commonwealth (therefore not a member of the Union with equal rights) was governed by the Sejm, but could not send its own senators to it. Local councils called sejmik (little Sejm) stretched across all of Latvia.

The word sejm derives from the verb "sjąć się" meaning "to get together", with similar words in some other Slavic languages,[2] of proto-Slavic origin *sъjęti < *sъjemti[3] Sejm, then, as a noun meant "a gathering, a meeting, a council.”

In the 19th century, as the concept of nations began to emerge, Juris Alunāns, a member of a Latvian nationalist group called the Young Latvians, claimed ownership to the word "Saeima". Despite exactly the same sound, same semantic structure and clear historical connotations, he claimed that it was a purely Latvian word that he had invented. As mentioned earlier, the word bears the same meaning: "a gathering, a meeting, a council". Juris Alunāns claimed that he “constructed“ it completely independently of the historical context spanning centuries and independently of the contemporarily functioning sejms in the Duchy of Warsaw, Congress Poland, Grand Duchy of Poznan and Galicia. He claimed that the word he constructed stemmed from the archaic Latvian word eima instead, meaning "to go" (derived from the PIE *ei "to go" and also a cognate with the Ancient Greek eimi, Gaulish eimu, among others).[4]

He could not explain, however, how the s- prefix got added to the word, and what sense this addition made within the limits of the Latvian language. Nevertheless, according to Juris, the word is purely Latvian and completely independent of the aforementioned historical context. However, the prefix sa- to a verb in modern Latvian language usually stands for a complete action and the word "Saeima" can stand for a meaning "Let's gather together completely".

In the pre-war Latvia, the Saeima was elected for three-year terms. The 1st Saeima met from 7 November 1922 to 2 November 1925, the 2nd from 3 November 1925 to 5 November 1928, the 3rd from 6 November 1928 to 2 November 1931, and the 4th from 3 November 1931 to 15 May 1934 (date of the Latvian coup d'état).

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Summary of the 6 October 2018 Latvian Saeima election results

Party		Votes	%	Seats	+/–
	Harmony	167,117	19.80	23	–1
	Who Owns the State? (now For a Humane Latvia)	120,264	14.25	16	New
	New Conservative Party	114,694	13.59	16	+16
	Development/For!	101,685	12.04	13	+13
	National Alliance	92,963	11.01	13	–4
	Union of Greens and Farmers	83,675	9.91	11	–10
	Unity	56,542	6.69	8	–15
Below 5%
	Latvian Association of Regions	35,018	4.14	0	–8
	Latvian Russian Union	27,014	3.20	0	0
	The Progressives	22,078	2.61	0	New
	For Latvia from the Heart	7,114	0.84	0	–7
	Latvian Nationalists	4,245	0.50	0	New
	For an Alternative	2,900	0.34	0	New
	SKG Union (LSDSP–KDS–GKL)	1,735	0.20	0	New
	Eurosceptic Action Party	1,059	0.12	0	New
	Latvian Centrist Party	897	0.10	0	New
Invalid/blank votes		5,925	–	–	–
Total		844,925	100	100	0
Registered voters/turnout		1,548,100	54.58	–	–
Source: CVK

• Category:Deputies of the Saeima
• Deputies of the Saeima
• List of Deputy Speakers of the Saeima
• People's Council of Latvia - provisional parliament from 1918-1920
  

  Saeima building
• Constitutional Assembly of Latvia - consented to the Satversme in 1922

Deputies are elected from five constituencies, based on the cultural regions of Latvia.

• Latvijas Republikas Saeima
• Central Election Commission of Latvia