Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs has dismissed welfare minister Reinis Uzulnieks on September 13 after police stopped him driving with more than six times the legal alcohol limit, three weeks before a general election.
Municipal police pulled over a Škoda in Stopiņi parish, Ropaži municipality, just outside Riga, on the night of September 12, and called state police after they suspected drink-driving.
The state police confirmed a breath test reading of 3.09 per mille. Public broadcaster LTV had reported close to 3.5 per mille. The legal limit for most drivers in Latvia is 0.5 per mille.
A criminal case was opened and the car seized.
Uzulnieks, 40, spent the night in detention in Riga and was released on September 13. No separate preventive measure was imposed.
Driving with more than 1.5 per mille has been a criminal offence in Latvia since November 2022, not merely an administrative one.
The penalty can include up to a year in prison, probation supervision and a five-year driving ban.
Confiscated vehicles are often sent to Ukrainian forces, under a scheme running since March 2023.
At around 3 per mille a driver is in the range doctors associate with severe intoxication and alcohol poisoning.
Uzulnieks belongs to the Latvian Farmers’ Union (LZS), part of the Greens and Farmers Union (ZZS), a partner in Kulbergs’ coalition.
He had been welfare minister since March 2025 and had earlier served as the ministry’s parliamentary secretary.
ZZS called an emergency meeting on September 13, withdrew its support and asked the LZS to expel him. Uzulnieks pre-empted that by applying to suspend his membership and is no longer in the party, ZZS board chairman Armands Krauze said on September 14. The alliance said it would not immediately put forward a replacement.
Kulbergs then signed the dismissal and appointed agriculture minister Uldis Augulis, a former welfare minister, as acting head of the portfolio, a role he took up on September 14.
“If a person gets behind the wheel while intoxicated by alcohol, they endanger the health and lives of other people. From the minister’s side, this is an irresponsible and categorically unacceptable action. Therefore, Uzulnieks’s dismissal from office is the only right decision,” he told the LETA news agency through his communications adviser. On X he called a minister drinking and driving “total irresponsibility, a danger to society”.
President Edgars Rinkēvičs also condemned the incident, writing on Facebook that drink-driving by public officials was unacceptable.
Uzulnieks issued his first public statement on September 14, saying he had made a serious mistake and apologising to the public, his colleagues and his family.
The timing is awkward for the centre-right coalition, as Latvians will vote on October 3 to elect the 15th Saeima, Latvia’s parliament, with early voting opening on September 28.
