Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs’s centrist, pro-Ukraine United List party has won parliamentary elections by a wide margin.

With 97 percent of the ballots counted, Central Election Commission data showed on Sunday that United List had 35.3 percent of the votes, enough for 42 seats in the 100-seat parliament.

The populist Latvia First came second at 13.1 percent in Saturday’s election, securing 17 seats. Third in the rankings was the pro-Russian Sovereign Power party at 11.7 percent or 14 seats, followed by the National Alliance, which promotes a hardline approach ⁠to the Kremlin, at 8.9 percent, or 11 seats.

Nearly 800,000 Latvians voted in the country’s 11th parliamentary elections since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 with a turnout of 51.8 percent.

Throughout his campaign, Kulbergs promised more antidrone capability for Latvia and defence spending maintained at 5 percent of gross domestic product, one of the highest levels in NATO.

His pro-Kremlin rivals said Latvia should stop any aid to Ukraine and instead focus on tackling cost-of-living issues, particularly among the country’s Russian-speaking minority.

Although ‌pro-Russian parties increased their representation, they remained sidelined and were unlikely to influence government policy.

Latvia’s ethnic Russian minority is split between those who oppose Moscow’s war in Ukraine and others who voice frustration with policies at home aimed at limiting their influence on public life, ‌which ‌many of them see as discriminatory.

Latvia, a country with a population of 1.9 million people, is sandwiched between the Baltic Sea and Russia and Belarus to the east, with European Union and NATO allies Estonia and Lithuania to the north and south.