The Latvian participating broadcaster, Latvijas Televīzija (LTV), organised the national final Eirodziesma 2005 in order to select its entry for the contest.

Ten songs ultimately qualified to compete in the final on 26 February 2005 where two rounds of public voting selected "The War Is Not Over" performed by Valters and Kaža as the winner.

Performing during the show in position 5, "The War Is Not Over" was announced among the top 10 entries of the semi-final and therefore qualified to compete in the final on 21 May.

The two semi-finals, held on 29 January and 5 February 2005, each featured ten competing entries from which five advanced to the final from each show.

[7] A jury panel appointed by LTV evaluated the submitted songs and selected twenty entries for the competition.

The jury panel consisted of Alar Kotkas (Estonian composer), Amberlife (Lithuanian musician and songwriter), Michael Cederberg (representative of Sveriges Radio P3), Ramona Forsström (Promotion Manager of International Repertoire at EMI Finland), Edward van de Vendel (Dutch poet and lyricist), Jānis Lūsēns (composer), members of the LTV Eurovision team and music directors at LTV.

[8][9] On 6 January 2005, LTV announced that the song "Your Love Is on My Side" would be performed by the duo Creem instead of Lily.

The live portion of the show was held at the LTV Studio 1 in Riga where the artists awaited the results while their performances, which were filmed earlier on 23 January 2005, were screened.

The ten entries that qualified from the preceding two semi-finals competed and the winner was selected over two rounds of public televoting.

[13] According to Eurovision rules, all nations with the exceptions of the host country, the "Big Four" (France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom), and the ten highest placed finishers in the 2004 contest are required to qualify from the semi-final on 19 May 2005 in order to compete for the final on 21 May 2005; the top ten countries from the semi-final progress to the final.