Union of Greens and Farmers
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Zaļo un Zemnieku Savienība (abbreviated ZZS, English: Union of Greens and Farmers or Union of Greens and Rustics) is a green/agrarian political alliance in Latvia. It consists of two political parties: Latvijas Zemnieku Savienība (the Latvian Farmers' Union) and the Latvijas Zaļā Partija (Green Party of Latvia). It is the second-largest party in the Saeima.
The alliance is based on similar sentimental feelings shared by the voters of the two parties. 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. This perception has resulted in an alliance between green and farmer's parties, which is very rare in other countries.
The alliance was established before the 2002 parliamentary election. It ran on an ideologically amorphous agenda and won 12 out of 100 seats in the parliament. In March 2004, Indulis Emsis from the Green Party became the Prime Minister of Latvia.
On a European scale, the Green Party is cooperating with the European Federation of Green Parties/European Free Alliance and the Farmer's Union is cooperating with the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party. Before the European Parliament election, 2004, ZZS announced that, if its representative was elected, he would join one of the two groups, depending on which of the two Latvian parties he belonged to. ZZS failed to gather the 5% of votes necessary to gain a seat in European Parliament and thus no ZZS member was elected.
The alliance continued for the 2006 elections, and won 18 seats. It is part of the governing coalition, and green party chairman Indulis Emsis, who served as prime minister briefly in 2004, became speaker of parliament.
The alliance has been linked to Ventspils mayor and businessman Aivars Lembergs, to the degree that its critics have suggested that Lembergs is in fact running the union. Lembergs was the candidate of The Union of Greens and Farmers for the position of Prime Minister in 2006, before being charged with corruption, fraud, bribery, money laundering and abuse of elected office on July 20, 2006. As of March 14, 2007, Lembergs was detained by the Latvian authorities in relation to a criminal investigation.
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