History
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 cooperates with the European Federation of Green Parties/European Free Alliance and the Farmer's Union cooperates 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.
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. On March 14, 2007, Lembergs was detained by the Latvian authorities in relation to a criminal investigation.
Read more about this topic: Union Of Greens And Farmers
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“Most events recorded in history are more remarkable than important, like eclipses of the sun and moon, by which all are attracted, but whose effects no one takes the trouble to calculate.”
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“[Men say:] “Don’t you know that we are your natural protectors?” But what is a woman afraid of on a lonely road after dark? The bears and wolves are all gone; there is nothing to be afraid of now but our natural protectors.”
—Frances A. Griffin, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 19, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)