For Stability! | |
Native Name: | Stabilitātei! |
Abbreviation: | ST! |
Leader: | Aleksejs Rosļikovs |
Founders: | Aleksejs Rosļikovs |
Split: | Harmony Alternative |
Membership Year: | 2022 |
Membership: | 701[1] |
Position: | Centre[2] [3] |
Colours: | Orange |
Slogan: | "Stabilitātei-Jā!" ("Yes for Stability!") |
Seats1 Title: | Saeima |
Country: | Latvia |
For Stability! (Latvian: Stabilitātei!; ST!) is a Eurosceptic[4] Latvian political party founded on 26 February 2021.[5] [6] It was founded by former members of the Riga City Council Aleksejs Rosļikovs and Valērijs Petrovs. It is a party that advocates Russian minority politics,[7] and it describes itself as centrist on the political spectrum.[8]
The party organized multiple protests in 2021 against mandatory vaccination and restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The For Stability - Yes! (Stabilitātei - Jā!) group was founded in the winter of 2021. It was founded by two former Riga councilors elected from the list of the Social Democratic Party "Harmony": Aleksejs Rosļikovs and Valērijs Petrovs. In the early 2020 Riga City Council election, both councilors stood on the list of the party, which did not win seats in the council.[9] At the end of the ten days set aside for collecting signatures, a total of 315 people participated in the founding of the party. At the time of its founding, the party had 647 members.[10] The party's establishment was voted unanimously, and the party was officially founded on 26 February 2021.[11]
The group's leaders emphasized that they would build a political party free of sponsors, which would contribute to the stabilization of the state as its main task. They also announced that they would run in the local elections in 2021. They chose Law and Order and the Republic as the closest groups.
The party ran in the 2022 Latvian parliamentary election. It named Aleksejs Rosļikovs as the candidate for prime minister. Among others, in favor of leaving the European Union, achieving economic sovereignty and energy independence, direct presidential elections, reducing the number of deputies and majority voting. The party's postulates also included a revision of the tax policy, including a reduction in VAT on food and medicines. As regards schools, the party spoke out in favor of the right to education in Russian. The leader of the electoral list, Rosļikovs, described the party as centrist, while experts point to its populist profile.[12] [13]
The party's logo and initial abbreviation was the letter S with an exclamation point. The choice of the logo received a lot of criticism, especially in Sigulda, for the similarity of the logo with Sigulda's trademark "S!gulda aizrauj". Since Sigulda's trademark is 12 years older than the party, the court decided to ban the party "For Stability!" to use the trademark S! in economic circulation, including in advertising and online, without the permission of the municipality of Sigulda region.[14] Until December 2023, the party used the long version of the logo with the full name of the party before changing it to the current "ST!" one.