Latvian Socialist Party
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Template:Politics of Latvia The Latvian Socialist Party (Latvian: Latvijas Socialistiska Partija) was formed in 1994 in response to the banning of the communist party after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Latvian Socialist Party is a Marxist party.
The current president of the party is Alfrēds Rubiks, a former leader of the Latvian Communist Party. He was imprisoned from 1991 to 1997 for attempting a coup-d'etat against the Latvian authorities in August 1991.
The socialist party is mainly popular among the Russian-speaking population of Latvian. It places a high priority on issues important to ethnic Russians, such as language and citizenship laws. The socialist party believes that Latvian citizenship should be open to all people who were citizens of Latvia in 1990. This would entail a major change in the current law which only gives automatic citizenship to descendants of people who lived in Latvia before Soviet Union occupied it in 1940 and requires Russians who moved to Latvia between 1940 and 1990 to go through a naturalization process.
At the last legislative elections, 5 october 2002, it was part of the For Human Rights in United Latvia (Par cilvēka tiesībām vienotā Latvijā) coalition, that won 18.9 % of popular vote and 25 out of 100 seats. It was an alliance of predominantly Russian-speaking parties from 1998 to 2003 but has left the alliance now. As of May 2004, it has 5 out of 100 seats in Saeima, the Latvian parliament.
External link
- Official web site (http://www.latsocpartija.lv) (in Latvian and Russian)