Editing Latvian Way (section)

==History==
Latvian Way was founded on 25 September 1993, by a group of former activists of [[Popular Front of Latvia]] and Latvian exiles who had returned to Latvia after it regained independence. In its first election in 1993, Latvian Way won 32.4% of popular vote and became the leading party in a coalition government. Later, its popularity declined, with 14.6% of votes in 1995 election and 18.0% in 1998. Despite that, Latvian Way remained a powerful force in Latvian politics and was part of every coalition government in Latvia from July 1993 to November 2002. Four Latvian Way members were [[Prime Minister of Latvia|Prime Ministers]]: [[Valdis Birkavs]] (from 1993 to 1994), [[Māris Gailis]] (from 1994 to 1995), [[Vilis Krištopans]] (from 1998 to 1999) and [[Andris Bērziņš (Latvian Prime Minister)|Andris Bērziņš]] (from 2000 to 2002). A fifth former prime minister, Ivars Godmanis, joined the Latvian Way party after his term as prime minister ended.

In the 2002 general election, it got 4.9% of the vote, just under the 5% needed to secure representation in parliament. After this loss, several politicians left Latvian Way for other parties. Latvian Way regained some ground in the [[2004 European Parliament election in Latvia|European Parliament Election]] in June 2004 with 6.5% of vote but it still faced an uncertain future and the difficult task of regaining voters' trust. For the 2006 election, Latvian Way formed an electoral coalition with the [[Latvia's First Party]]. They won 10 seats in the election, allowing Latvian Way to join the coalition government. Party chairman [[Ivars Godmanis]] became Minister of the Interior in November 2006, and then prime minister in December 2007.  He resigned after protests paralysed the Latvian capital, [[Riga]], due to the global economic crisis. On 20 February 2009, Godmanis resigned as prime minister along with the rest of his government amid concerns about handling the economic crisis.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7901902.stm|title=Latvian PM quits as crisis bites|date=20 February 2009|publisher=[[BBC]]|accessdate=21 February 2009}}</ref>