Союз "зелёных" и крестьян Латвии: история и текущее состояние

Political alliance in Latvia

The Union of Greens and Farmers (, ZZS) is an agrarian political alliance in Latvia. It is made up of the Latvian Farmers' Union, Latvian Social Democratic Workers' Party, and For Latvia and Ventspils. It is positioned in the centre or centre right on the political spectrum. It is orientated towards conservative, Eurosceptic, and can be considered a centrist Nordic agrarian alliance,

While the alliance's formal leader is Edgars Tavars, its leading figure and chief financial supporter is the oligarch Aivars Lembergs. The ZZS has had the world's first prime minister, Indulis Emsis (Prime Minister of Latvia in 2004), and first head of state, Raimonds Vējonis (President of Latvia 2015–19), to be affiliated with a green party.

The alliance was established to contest the 2002 parliamentary election by the Latvian Green Party (LZP) and Latvian Farmers' Union (LZS). In April 2015 she joined the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) group. In the 2015 presidential election, the alliance's then leader Raimonds Vējonis became President of Latvia and subsequently resigned his leadership of the alliance. In January 2016, after the resignation of Prime Minister Laimdota Straujuma, Liepāja Party member Māris Kučinskis became the head of government. After the 2018 Latvian parliamentary election, ZZS lost ten seats and ultimately in 2019 became a part of the opposition to the Kariņš cabinet. It stayed in opposition until 2023, when it became part of Evika Siliņa cabinet.

In early 2022, the alliance started to break apart, with the Green Party announcing that it sees no way of further cooperation with For Latvia and Ventspils, still led by oligarch Aivars Lembergs, and ultimately on 11 June 2022 it voted to leave the alliance, later joined by the Liepāja Party. In July, the Greens and the Liepāja Party joined the Latvian Association of Regions and a political NGO led by construction contractor Uldis Pīlēns in forming the United List alliance. The departing parties were replaced with the Latvian Social Democratic Workers' Party (LSDSP), a rival of the 1920s and 1930s, who joined ZZS on June 1 and allowed it to retain its name. The alliance once again announced Lembergs as their prime ministerial candidate.

The Union of Greens and Farmers is based on similar sentimental feelings shared by the voters of the two groups. Latvians are supportive of traditional small farms and perceive them as more environmentally friendly than large scale farming: Nature is threatened by development, while small farms are threatened by large industrial scale farms. For example, after the restoration of independence, Latvia broke down Soviet era collective farms and returned land to its original owners (or their descendants). This perception has resulted in an alliance between green and farmer's parties, which is rare in other countries. The alliance is Eurosceptic, although not opposed to Latvian membership of the European Union. The ZZS opposed the adoption of the euro by Latvia. The party opposes granting non citizens Latvian citizenship or voting rights in local elections. On social issues, the party has taken a traditionally conservative approach, opposing same sex marriage and instead favouring civil unions for same sex couples. It supports abortion rights for up to 12 weeks of pregnancy and has voted to ratify the Istanbul Convention for preventing violence against women, despite having initially expressed skepticism over the convention’s use of the term “gender” and potential redefinition of marriage outside of that of a union of a man and a woman.

ElectionLeaderPerformanceRankGovernment Votes % ± pp Seats +/– 2002Ingrīda Ūdre 93,759 9.47 New New 5th 2006Aivars Lembergs 151,595 16.81 7.34 6 2nd 2010 190,025 20.11 3.30 4 3rd 2011Raimonds Vējonis 111,957 12.33 7.78 9 5th 2014 178,210 19.66 7.33 8 3rd 2018 Māris Kučinskis 83,675 9.97 9.69 10 6th 2022 Aivars Lembergs113,67612.58 2.61 5 2nd (2022 2023) (2023 )

Election Leader Votes % Seats +/– 2004Baiba Rivža 24,467 4.28 (#8) 2009 29,463 3.79 (#10) 2014 Andris Bērziņš 36,637 8.32 (#4) 1 2019 Dana Reizniece Ozola 25,252 5.37 (#6) 1