Sovereign Power

Sovereign Power (Latvian: Suverēnā vara, SV) is a political party in Latvia, chaired by Jūlija Stepaņenko. The name dates from a remote members' meeting at the end of June 2022, when the registered party Heart of Latgale Union—founded by Ernests Jurkāns, a former mayor of Rēzekne and former member of the Saeima—was renamed. Latvian Television's De Facto reported that Jurkāns had renamed the organisation Law. Responsibility. Order in March 2022, that Stepaņenko's husband Vjačeslavs Stepaņenko then became chairman and the membership was raised to about 500, and that a meeting of 16 members later elected Jūlija Stepaņenko chair and adopted the Sovereign Power name, a sequence the programme described as legal under the rule that a new group may contest a Saeima election by taking over a party already a year old.

On 3 October 2026 the party stood in a joint list with the Alliance of Young Latvians (Apvienība Jaunlatvieši). The Central Election Commission recorded 94,211 valid ballot papers for the list, 11.710 percent of valid envelopes, and 15 of 100 seats, third behind the United List (283,892 papers, 35.288 percent, 41 seats) and Latvia First (105,198 papers, 13.076 percent, 17 seats). Turnout was 51.79 percent, 806,641 voters out of 1,557,615 eligible, and the commission's published count, last updated on 5 October 2026, covered all 1,059 polling-station commissions. Public broadcaster LSM reported that neither party in the alliance had previously held Saeima seats, and quoted Stepaņenko calling the provisional result a "fairly dignified representation" and saying the group would work so that its voters could be proud of it.

LSM's pre-election guide classed the list as populist and oriented toward family values, and summarised its published pledges as higher family benefits, a five-year moratorium on new taxes, abolition of housing taxes, no public money for military conflicts, more scope for minority-language schools, abandonment of Rail Baltica and of the European Union Green Deal, a Saeima cut by half, an end to conscription, consideration of leaving the World Health Organization, and a directly elected president. The Warsaw Centre for Eastern Studies described the alliance as pro-Russian. LSM, in a separate results commentary, wrote that Latvia First and Sovereign Power were both seen as soft on Russia and that their combined share, about 24 percent, resembled the levels once taken by Harmony, formerly the main party of Latvia's Russian-speaking minority.

In Riga the alliance finished ahead of Latvia First, while in Latgale it placed third, with 17.27 percent, behind Latvia First (29.07 percent) and the United List's regional wing (18.86 percent), according to the Centre for Eastern Studies. On 24 September 2026 Foreign Minister Baiba Braže placed Stepaņenko's father, Sergey Fedotov, on the list of undesirable persons, barring him from Latvia indefinitely, after reporting that a Russian construction company he headed had made "dragon's teeth" anti-tank obstacles for the Russian army and that he had given his daughter a flat valued at €180,000 and a further €240,000. The Constitution Protection Bureau had already examined the declared gifts and briefed senior officials. After the vote, LSM expected the 15-member group to sit in opposition beside Latvia First and the Progressives. On 6 October President Edgars Rinkēvičs asked Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs of the United List to form the next cabinet on the strength of that list's 41 seats.

History

Predecessor parties

Suverēnā vara (Sovereign Power) is the present name of a legal person registered in Latvia long before the politicians who now lead it. A founding congress in Rēzekne on 8 January 2005 approved the statutes of Savienība Latgales sirds (Latgale Heart Union; abbreviated SLS). The organisation was entered in the register of political organisations on 24 January 2005 under number 40008087873, and the statutes were published in Latvijas Vēstnesis on 15 February 2005. They described a party active across Latvia but centred on central Latgale, especially Rēzekne, where the board and chair were to sit, and aimed at representing residents in local government, the state administration and the Saeima. Latvian Television's De Facto later reported that it had been founded by Ernests Jurkāns, a former mayor of Rēzekne and a former Saeima deputy and minister.

It did not become a national force. On 24 April 2019 the Register of Enterprises recorded a change of name to Partija "Likums.Atbildība.Kārtība" (Law. Responsibility. Order), published on 29 April, and amended the aims so that they included strengthening state sovereignty. Jurkāns remained on the board, with the right to represent the party alone. The registration number did not change. Register extracts list the 2005 and 2019 names as previous names, the second of them in use until 4 July 2022.

Break with Latvia First

Jūlija Stepaņenko and Ļubova Švecova were elected to the 13th Saeima at the 2018 Latvian parliamentary election on the list of Saskaņa (Harmony). During that term Stepaņenko left Gods kalpot Rīgai (Honour to Serve Riga). Register information cited by Delfi places her on the board of Aldis Gobzems's party Katram un katrai from 26 February 2021 to 2 July 2021, and then on the board of Latvia First (Latvija pirmajā vietā), the party associated with Ainārs Šlesers, from 10 September 2021 until 11 May 2022. De Facto described her as a founder and board chair of both Gobzems's and Šlesers's parties. At the split she chaired Latvia First, which had also nominated her for state president.

On 4 March 2022, shortly after Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, an expanded board meeting of Latvia First adopted a statement on the war. It condemned the war started by President Vladimir Putin and supported joint European Union and NATO efforts to stop it. The party said Stepaņenko had attended, had not stated a view and had left, and that Švecova had not voted in the Saeima on 3 March to grant Ukraine the status of an EU candidate country. Both were expelled for not joining the condemnation.

Stepaņenko wrote on 8 March that she had learned of the expulsion from social media and had been condemned for not giving a sufficiently detailed opinion on the war, and that Švecova had been treated in the same way for missing the Saeima vote on Ukraine's admission to the EU. She argued that the meeting had not been called under the statutes and therefore had not been entitled to expel members, while adding that the decision would not be undone.

Rebranding as Sovereign Power

Saeima lists could then be filed only by parties, or alliances of parties, with at least 500 members and founded no later than a year before polling day. De Facto reported that in summer 2022 older, largely inactive parties were used to meet that test, with leadership, board, statutes and sometimes the name changed without creating a new legal person. In March Jurkāns, who told the programme that small parties had no future, asked the council of Likums.Atbildība.Kārtība to build a large party, and it agreed. He stayed on the board. Vjačeslavs Stepaņenko, a former Riga city councillor and Jūlija Stepaņenko's husband, was elected chair; within a few months the party admitted about 300 members and passed 500.

At a repeat members' meeting held remotely at the end of June, the 16 members present voted to transfer the leadership to Jūlija Stepaņenko and to rename the party Suverēnā vara. Register histories date the end of the name Likums.Atbildība.Kārtība to 4 July 2022. Lursoft recorded her appointment to the board that day; her husband had been a board member since 20 April, and the nine-member board also included Švecova and Jurkāns. Stepaņenko told De Facto that she would continue in the Saeima with like-minded colleagues and that "we will be in the Saeima." The programme called the handover more straightforward than other takeovers that summer because Jurkāns remained high on the Latgale list.

On 1 August 2022 the Central Election Commission registered Suverēnā vara's lists in every constituency for the election to the Fourteenth Saeima. On 1 October the list received 3.24% of the vote. The commission recorded that seven lists, not including Suverēnā vara, reached the five percent required to enter parliament, so the party won no seats. Stepaņenko's and Švecova's mandates, obtained in 2018 on another list, ended with the 13th Saeima, and the organisation registered in 2005 spent the following parliamentary term outside parliament.

Ideology and programme

Political system and popular sovereignty

Sovereign Power’s standing programme says the party seeks to restore Latvia’s political, economic and “spiritual” sovereignty, and that sovereign power belongs to the people rather than to the bureaucracy, foreign interests or what it calls ideological structures. The Satversme uses the same vesting formula, but places government in a Saeima of 100 members elected by proportional representation and a president elected by the Saeima for four years, by secret ballot, with at least 51 votes. The programme the joint list with the Alliance of Young Latvians filed with the Central Election Commission on 4 July 2026 proposes a popularly chosen president, a revised parliamentary electoral system and a cut from 100 deputies to 50. The text published by the party also calls for a mixed electoral system and for lowering the number of votes required to call a referendum to 5 percent of the number who voted at the previous Saeima election. Article 78 instead requires not less than one tenth of the electorate to submit a fully drafted law or constitutional amendment before the Saeima’s refusal to adopt it unchanged sends it to a referendum.

Family, language and citizenship

The demography chapter proposes a family-strengthening law and promotion of what it calls family values, a benefit of one quarter of the minimum wage for each child, support for a parent to stay with a child until the age of three, doubled tax relief for single-parent families and a return-migration policy. Reporting the text as filed, public media also noted pledges not to raise the retirement age, to allow withdrawal of second-pillar pension savings, to arrange rental housing for young families and to exempt disability pensions from income tax, and observed that the programme does not explain how the benefits and tax cuts would be paid for.

That programme says “ideologies that undermine family values”, naming the Istanbul Convention, should be excluded from education, the media and legislation. A party resolution calls the Council of Europe treaty on violence against women and domestic violence unacceptable, in conflict with the Satversme and harmful to what it terms the natural family, and says a 15th Saeima mandate would be used to finish denunciation and to draft a Family Protection Law. The Baltic Times, citing LETA, reported in October 2026 that the previous Saeima had voted to withdraw, that President Edgars Rinkēvičs returned the law unpromulgated, and that parliament left the decision to its successor; he said he saw no reason for Latvia to rush to be the first European Union country to leave.

On language and citizenship, the account of the submitted programme reported restoring Russian as an elective school subject, maintaining Latgalian and Livonian, a 5 percent value-added-tax rate on printed matter in all languages, and a simpler, faster citizenship procedure for Latvian non-citizens. The published text also proposes repealing the Skola2030 reform and letting private schools teach in minority languages, without saying which naturalisation requirements would change. In May 2026 on Latvian Television, Rūdolfs Brēmanis went further, saying Latvian children should start by learning Russian and Russian children Latvian, as a free choice, while Ļubova Švecova said the list wanted to “step out of the box” on language and nationality.

Economy, welfare and public services

The economic chapter promises at least five years without tax rises or new taxes, abolition of the vehicle operation tax on the principle “you pay when you drive”, and abolition of immovable-property tax on all dwellings. It would turn ALTUM into what the text calls a full national bank, stop financing airBaltic, and freeze Rail Baltica while ending its funding. An English survey of the manifestos described this as abandoning the European Green Deal; the programme itself says only that Green Deal rules burdening residents and firms should be dropped, that new wind farms should not be supported, and that leaving the Nord Pool exchange should be considered, with a 5 percent value-added-tax rate proposed for food, energy and medicines. The same reporting noted pledges to shorten treatment queues and cut medicine taxes, without a stated source of funds.

The Alliance of Young Latvians’ own programme demands restoration of the Latvian lats, compensation from the European Union and NATO for losses it attributes to reduced cooperation with Russia and Belarus, and a review of Latvia’s accession terms. Those demands do not appear in the joint 2026 text, which instead seeks equal area payments for Latvian farmers in the EU budget from 2028.

Defence and international alignment

The joint programme says Latvia should not enter or finance military conflicts, should prefer diplomacy to what it calls a submissive foreign policy, should shift defence spending toward internal security, infrastructure, medicine and rescue services, and should end compulsory National Defence Service for young people. The Ministry of Defence states that the law adopted on 5 April 2023 obliges male citizens to serve, generally from age 18 and no later than 24, while women may volunteer. The filed programme also says leaving the World Health Organization should be considered. In a May 2026 broadcast, Rūdolfs Brēmanis said Ukraine should be supported humanitarianly but not militarily or financially, and Ļubova Švecova said sanctions do not work and should be used only if they benefit the state; the party did not clearly answer whether Russia was the aggressor.

The Alliance of Young Latvians’ own text instead calls for military instruction “from childhood” and for restoring the Aizsargi in every municipality, with a professional army for those who continue. That school-training demand is not in the joint programme, and Sovereign Power’s standing text says defence should rest only on professional service.

Organisation and alliances

Leadership and membership

Sovereign Power (Suverēnā vara; registration No. 40008087873) is a political party in Latvia governed by a nine-member board appointed on 17 June 2024. Jūlija Stepaņenko is chair. The 2025 management report, published in Latvijas Vēstnesis, names the other members as Ļubova Švecova, Ernests Jurkāns, Karina Sprūde, Uģis Sprincis, Vjačeslavs Stepaņenko, Pāvels Naumovs, Dāvids Kļaviņš and Timurs Safiuļins, and records 780 members. The registered office is in Riga. The same report says a representatives’ meeting on 15 November 2025 adopted an ethics code covering members and future candidates, and that a youth section had been submitting proposals and joining campaign preparations.

State funding follows the rule that a party or alliance which received more than 2 percent of the vote at the previous Saeima election is eligible for budget money. At the 1 October 2022 election Sovereign Power won 29,603 votes, 3.24 percent, below the 5 percent required for seats in the 14th Saeima. The Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau (Korupcijas novēršanas un apkarošanas birojs, KNAB) lists it among 13 parties and alliances entitled to funding from 2023 through 2026 on that result, with payments of €165,184.74 in 2023, €186,498.90 in 2024 and €196,035 in 2025. The 2025 accounts show income of €213,892, of which state funding was €196,035 and donations €14,858, against expenditure of €245,037.

Alliance of Young Latvians

The Alliance of Young Latvians (Apvienība Jaunlatvieši) is a separate party. It was founded on 11 February 2023 at the Riga Latvian Society House by 242 people; the party states that by 28 February it had more than 500 members and was therefore able to contest elections. Its board members are Edgars Dārznieks, Rūdolfs Brēmanis and Artūrs Klēbahs. In March 2025 Latvian public media described Brēmanis as the party’s leader. Enterprise Register figures compiled by LETA put its membership at 1,528 on the return filed on 27 February 2026, the third-largest total then reported, after Unity (2,183) and Latvia First (1,853).

In May 2023 Glorija Grevcova, elected to the 14th Saeima on the For Stability! (Stabilitātei!) list and by then its only deputy outside a faction, joined the Alliance of Young Latvians. She lost the mandate on 15 February 2024, when a conviction for giving the Central Election Commission false information about her education and employment took effect; the seat returned to For Stability!.

The two parties had already concluded a memorandum for the 2024 European Parliament election, supporting each other at public events while still filing separate lists. On 4 March 2025 they announced joint candidate lists in every municipality for the 7 June local elections, with Stepaņenko standing for mayor of Riga. Sovereign Power’s management report says those lists won 20 council seats in seven municipalities: eight in Riga (12.4 percent), three in Jelgava (18.5 percent), three in Olaine (16 percent), two each in Salaspils (11.2 percent) and Ropaži (8.38 percent), and one each in Ādaži (5.8 percent) and Mārupe (5.6 percent). In the Riga City Council the deputies sat as one faction under both parties’ names.

On 4 July 2026 the alliance submitted 125 candidates for the 15th Saeima. The Central Election Commission registered the lists, styled “SUVERĒNĀ VARA / APVIENĪBA JAUNLATVIEŠI”, in all five constituencies on 6 July. Riga was led by Stepaņenko, Brēmanis and Švecova, with Klēbahs fifth; Vidzeme by Sprūde; Latgale by Vjačeslavs Stepaņenko; Kurzeme by Dārznieks; and Zemgale by Andrejs Pagors. Provisional results reported on 4 October gave the alliance nearly 12 percent of the vote and 15 seats. Neither of the parties that formed it had previously been represented in the Saeima.

European affiliation

In June 2023 the general assembly of the European Christian Political Movement, meeting in France, accepted Sovereign Power as a member, together with Valores of Spain and Abba of Malta. The party’s programme for the 2024 European Parliament election described it as part of that movement and said it would work with the movement’s other parties. The organisation now publishes its member list as the European Christian Political Party. That list includes parties from other European countries and no Latvian party.

Electoral history

2022 parliamentary election

Sovereign Power (Suverēnā vara) first stood under that name at the 2022 Latvian parliamentary election on 1 October 2022, for the 14th Saeima. The Central Election Commission approved the results on 17 October. The list received 29,603 valid ballot papers and no seats in the Saeima. Its published share, 3.24 percent, divides those papers by 914,022 valid envelopes; the same papers were 3.28 percent of 903,639 valid ballot papers. Seats require 5 percent of valid envelopes, not of ballot papers: Attīstībai/Par! had 45,452 papers, 4.97 percent of envelopes and 5.03 percent of ballot papers, and won none. Turnout was 59.41 percent, 916,368 of 1,542,407 eligible voters.

The threshold is national, so a constituency share above 5 percent did not yield a seat. In the Riga constituency the list took 14,918 papers, 5.02 percent of valid envelopes, and still no mandate. Envelope shares elsewhere were 4.97 percent in Latgallia (5,526 papers), 2.11 percent in Vidzeme (5,528), 1.54 percent in Courland (1,773) and 1.44 percent in Semigallia (1,858).

2024 European Parliament election

At the 2024 European Parliament election in Latvia, on 8 June 2024, Latvia elected nine members of the European Parliament from one nationwide constituency. The commission certified the results on 17 June without altering the totals announced the week before. Of 1,541,102 eligible voters, 521,226 cast a ballot (33.82 percent); there were 520,367 valid envelopes and 514,585 valid ballot papers.

Sovereign Power stood on its own and received 13,623 valid ballot papers, no seat. The commission's published share, 2.62 percent, is the envelope share; the same papers were 2.65 percent of valid ballot papers. The Alliance of Young Latvians (Apvienība Jaunlatvieši) ran a separate list, with 11,067 papers, 2.13 percent of envelopes and 2.15 percent of ballot papers, and also won nothing. Together they still had 24,690 papers, 4.74 percent of valid envelopes. Seven of 16 lists shared the nine seats. New Unity led with 25.09 percent and two seats, and the National Alliance had 22.07 percent and two; For Latvia's Development (9.36 percent), the United List (8.18), The Progressives (7.45), Saskaņa (7.13) and Latvia First (6.16) took one each, all on the envelope measure.

Sovereign Power's envelope share was 5.32 percent in Latgallia (2,501 papers), 3.43 percent in the Riga count (5,247), 1.89 percent in Vidzeme (3,336), 1.81 percent in Semigallia (1,396) and 1.70 percent in Courland (1,143). Latgallia did not qualify the list, because the test is national. The Alliance of Young Latvians peaked in the same area, at 3.59 percent of envelopes.

2025 municipal elections

Municipal elections were held on 7 June 2025. Sovereign Power and the Alliance of Young Latvians nominated joint lists, and Latvian public media reported candidates in every municipality. On the commission's tables the printed percentage is again the share of valid envelopes, and lists under 5 percent in a council received no seats there.

In Riga, electing 60 councillors, the joint list won 25,912 valid ballot papers: 12.134 percent of 213,551 valid envelopes, and 12.22 percent of 212,103 valid ballot papers, for eight seats. That was fifth by papers, behind Latvia First (38,793 papers, 18.166 percent, 13 seats), the Progressives (16.622 percent, 11 seats), the National Alliance (14.202 percent, 10) and New Unity (12.900 percent, nine), and ahead of For Stability! (Stabilitātei!), on 6.937 percent and five seats. City turnout was 52.30 percent, 213,955 of 409,130 eligible voters.

Elsewhere the commission recorded a higher envelope share in Jelgava, a 15-seat council: 3,357 papers, 18.517 percent of valid envelopes (18.69 percent of valid ballot papers) and three seats, just behind the Union of Greens and Farmers on 18.975 percent and the same three seats. In Olaine Municipality it took 905 papers, 16.115 percent of envelopes and three of 15 seats. It also won seats in Salaspils Municipality (11.248 percent, two of 15), Ropaži Municipality (8.382 percent, two of 19), Ādaži Municipality (5.835 percent, one of 15) and Mārupe Municipality (5.641 percent, one of 19). Jelgava Municipality, around the city, gave it 3.366 percent of envelopes and no seats. Jūlija Stepaņenko told public media the alliance had not entered all 42 councils.

2026 parliamentary election

The election of the 15th Saeima was held on 3 October 2026. As of 9 October the commission still headed its results "provisional": all 1,059 polling stations were in the count, the tables had last been updated at 12:23 on 5 October, and the elected-deputies section had not been published. On those figures Suverēnā vara / Apvienība Jaunlatvieši received 94,211 valid ballot papers, 11.710 percent of 804,501 valid envelopes and 11.87 percent of 793,846 valid ballot papers, and 15 seats, third among lists over the 5 percent envelope threshold. Seats are then divided inside each constituency, so national rank in votes need not match seats in a district.

The United List led the provisional count with 283,892 papers, 35.288 percent and 41 seats, and Latvia First was second with 105,198 papers, 13.076 percent and 17 seats. The National Alliance and the Progressives took 10 seats each (8.897 and 7.878 percent of envelopes), and New Unity seven (6.362 percent). The Union of Greens and Farmers, with 35,405 papers, was at 4.401 percent of envelopes and 4.46 percent of ballot papers, under 5 percent on either denominator, and won no seats. Turnout was 51.79 percent: 806,641 voters out of 1,557,615 eligible.

The alliance's 15 provisional mandates were seven of 38 in Riga, three of 26 in Vidzeme, three of 12 in Latgallia, one of 11 in Courland and one of 13 in Semigallia. Envelope shares were 17.27 percent in Latgallia (14,953 papers), 16.26 percent in Riga (44,959), 9.29 percent in Semigallia (10,093), 7.88 percent in Vidzeme (18,642) and 5.78 percent in Courland (5,564). Of the Riga papers, 43,536 were cast in the city and 1,423 abroad, which are added to that constituency.

Representation in parliament and local government

Independent deputies in the 13th Saeima

Jūlija Stepaņenko and Ļubova Švecova entered the Saeima on 6 November 2018 from the list of the Social Democratic Party "Concord" (Saskaņa). Stepaņenko sat outside every parliamentary group for the whole term, on the Legal Affairs and European Affairs committees, and from 5 September 2019 as deputy chair of the unaffiliated members. Švecova belonged to the Concord group until 16 September 2020 and was unaffiliated thereafter, on the Budget and Finance (Taxation) Committee and the Public Expenditure and Audit Committee.

On 4 March 2022 Latvia First expelled both from the party, saying Stepaņenko had left a board meeting without giving a view on its condemnation of Russia's war against Ukraine, and that Švecova had not voted the day before for European Union candidate status for Ukraine. Švecova left the Saeima's cooperation groups with the parliaments of Russia and Belarus on 3 March 2022. Latvia First had no faction in that Saeima; the closing roll still listed both women among the unaffiliated members.

From 9 July 2021 both belonged to the deputies' group for the right to voluntary vaccination, Stepaņenko as deputy chair. She challenged the temporary rule making a COVID-19 certificate a condition of a deputy's work in the Saeima. On 7 December 2023 the Constitutional Court found the rule incompatible with the first part of Article 101 of the Satversme. It held that solidarity with the public and trust in the Saeima were not a legitimate aim for that restriction, although the measure had been meant to widen vaccination.

On 11 August 2022 the Saeima confirmed Ainārs Vilciņš, next on the KPV LV list in Vidzeme, in place of the deceased Aldis Blumbergs. He sat as unaffiliated until 1 November 2022 and joined the Education, Culture and Science Committee on 8 September. The day his mandate was approved, he, Stepaņenko and Švecova formed the deputies' group "The Sovereign Power" (Suverēnā vara), an interest group rather than a faction. It ended with the 13th Saeima on 1 November 2022, when the 14th Saeima met.

Riga City Council

At the 7 June 2025 election to Riga City Council, the joint list Sovereign Power, Alliance of Young Latvians (Suverēnā vara, Apvienība Jaunlatvieši) won 25,912 ballots, 12.134 per cent of valid envelopes, and eight of 60 seats in Riga. The councillors were Jūlija Stepaņenko, Rūdolfs Brēmanis, Ļubova Švecova, Jūlija Sohina, Vjačeslavs Stepaņenko, Inna Djeri, Igors Solomatins and Artūrs Klēbahs.

On 19 June the Progressives, the National Alliance, New Unity and the United List signed a 34-vote cooperation agreement that did not include the joint list. On 27 June the council elected Viesturs Kleinbergs of the Progressives mayor by 34 votes to 22, with 56 councillors present. On 1 July he announced an eight-member Sovereign Power/Alliance of Young Latvians faction, chaired by Stepaņenko with Švecova as deputy.

Seven of the eight — all but Igors Solomatins — were elected to the 15th Saeima in October 2026, with replacements to be taken from the list. While Kleinbergs was away, the faction began collecting signatures for his dismissal, joined by For Stability!. Incoming councillor Vadims Baraņņiks cited the mayor's use of municipal resources to defend former Progressives councillor Mārtiņš Eņģelis. Latvia First had not yet signed. Coalition deputy mayors said the dispute could remain inside the agreement, since a successful motion would end the 34-vote majority.

The 15th Saeima

On 3 October 2026 the alliance Sovereign Power/Alliance of Young Latvians won 94,211 ballots, 11.710 per cent, and 15 seats, the third-largest bloc. Besides the seven departing Riga councillors, Latvian Public Media named Natālija Ābola, Karina Sprūde, Aleksejs Ignatjevs, Gita Plaude, Andrejs Pagors, Edgars Dārznieks, Andrejs Jakovļevs and Leontijs Morozs. None of the parties in the alliance had previously sat in the Saeima under its own name.

By 9 October 2026 the 15th Saeima had not met, so the alliance had no presidium posts, committee places or registered faction. Article 12 of the Satversme sets the first sitting for the first Tuesday of November, when the previous mandate ends; the Central Election Commission dates it 3 November 2026. The day after the election Stepaņenko told Latvian Radio the result was a substantial representation and that the alliance would seek partners on particular bills, including abolition of the immovable-property tax, a popularly elected president and a mixed electoral system. Asked about obstructing the government, she said that exposing lies and stopping theft could be labelled sabotage.

Foreign policy and the war in Ukraine

Statements on the invasion

Sovereign Power’s public comments on Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine have treated the war as a subject for negotiation rather than naming one side as its author. In a February 2024 Latvian Radio interview, European Parliament list leader Jūlija Stepaņenko said the party “very firmly” held that Ukraine “must win in peace talks,” that “by sending weapons, we in any case prolong this war,” and that “the best way to end the war is peace talks.” She said Ukraine’s borders would depend on negotiations between the two sides.

On 10 May 2024, in Delfi TV’s Nākamais, lūdzu!, Stepaņenko was asked whether Russia had started the war. She answered, “A war has started, yes,” and then, “No! The war was started by both states.” Asked whether she would call Russia the aggressor, she said she was “ready to promote peace talks” and blamed governing politicians for encouraging the war. She and Ļubova Švecova said that “diplomacy must win.” Delfi reported that they condemned violence in general but avoided a clear condemnation of Russia for starting the war.

That position was repeated in the 2026 Saeima campaign. In a May 2026 Kas notiek Latvijā? broadcast, Stepaņenko, Rūdolfs Brēmanis, Švecova and others gave no clear answer on whether Russia was the aggressor. Brēmanis said, “Whatever the Americans say, that is how it will be in the world,” and, citing drone incidents, allowed that Ukraine was an aggressor against Latvia. On drones over Latvian territory he said the remedy was “simply to tell the Ukrainians not to fly drones through here.” In a 21 September 2026 interview on the same programme, Stepaņenko called the maximum result of ending the war that “people must stop dying,” and said both sides had to agree on every issue. She refused to answer what the consequences of occupation were.

Security-service assessments

On 19 May 2024 the State Security Service (Valsts drošības dienests, VDD) told LETA that it was assessing those statements. Saeima deputy Edmunds Jurēvics of New Unity had asked Prosecutor General Juris Stukāns to consider a criminal offence, writing that the two showed “a conscious wish to distort the facts” about the invasion and were repeating what he called the Russian regime’s account of Ukraine’s “unsuccessful, inept policy.”

The VDD’s report on 2025 grouped Sovereign Power with For Stability! and the Latvian Russian Union as the parties most active that year in what it called the seclusion of Russian-speaking residents. It said such parties “regularly disseminated narratives that essentially overlapped with Russia’s interests,” including renewed cooperation with Russia and Belarus. Of the 2025 local-election campaign it wrote that Sovereign Power’s leaders “were unable to condemn Russia’s aggression,” which in the VDD’s view showed an attempt “to maintain support in the part of the society which effectively supports Russia’s aggression and its crimes against humanity in Ukraine.”

In September 2026 New Unity asked Prosecutor General Armīns Meisters to consider liquidation. It described the programme as stopping aid to Ukraine and cutting defence spending, and said that “by manipulating ‘peace’ rhetoric” the party “legitimises Russia’s geopolitical narratives.” The complaint also cited gifts from Stepaņenko’s father, treated among the party’s legal disputes.

Aid, sanctions and neutrality

The 2024 European Parliament programme did not name Russia or Ukraine. Latvian public media noted that it said “in these complex geopolitical conditions, diplomacy and the wisdom of leaders are more important than armaments and defense strategy planning.” In that broadcast Švecova said “profiting from war is a crime” but opposed breaking economic ties with Russia over Latvian jobs, while supporting a ban on manganese-ore transit to Russia. Ēriks Flaumanis said “European militarisation” was unacceptable and that European Union states should “use the opportunities that NATO provides,” without a clear answer on raising defence spending to 3 percent of GDP.

The 2026 Saeima programme of Sovereign Power and the Alliance of Young Latvians pledged to “prevent Latvia’s involvement in military conflicts, including their financing,” to seek diplomatic settlements, and to “eradicate a submissive foreign policy.” It proposed shifting defence money toward internal security, infrastructure, medicine and rescue services, and abolishing compulsory National Defence Service call-up. The text did not name NATO or state whether Latvia should remain in the alliance. In May 2026 Brēmanis said Ukraine should be supported humanely but not militarily or financially, and Švecova said sanctions “do not work” and should be applied only when they benefit Latvia. In September Stepaņenko said Latvia must not send budget money to Ukraine, that the defence budget should go to internal security, and that an alliance government would dismiss foreign minister Baiba Braže and form a “negotiating team” for peace talks.

In February 2026 the Riga City Council approved €100,000, via the charity Ziedot.lv, for Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Brēmanis, Vjačeslavs Stepaņenko and Švecova voted against; Jūlija Stepaņenko and three other alliance councillors did not vote.

Controversies and legal disputes

Gifts and a father's business in Russia

In September 2026, ahead of the Saeima election, The Insider and Latvian Television identified the father of party leader Jūlija Stepaņenko as Sergei Fedotov (Sergejs Fedotovs), a Solnechnogorsk businessman and majority owner of the concrete firms Forma ZhBI and PLK Forma, in the Moscow region of Russia. Company material from 2022, carried by the local paper Gazeta Senezh, said Forma ZhBI had made about 2,000 concrete "dragon's teeth" and tetrapods, sent to Russia's Belgorod region and to parts of Ukraine's Donbas then described in the posts as the Luhansk and Donetsk "people's republics", and had assembled about 50 mobile stoves later sent toward the front.

Fedotov told LTV the obstacles were a small subcontract for the defence of Belgorod, because the main contractor could not finish the order, and later put his firm's share at perhaps 200 to 300 pieces rather than 2,000. He said he would not apologise and was "proud of what I did and do", calling it help to people suffering in a war "nobody needs", and said he had not discussed it with his daughter.

Stepaņenko's declarations recorded two gifts from him worth 419,598.05 euros together: 239,598.05 euros in cash, declared when she left the Saeima on 31 October 2022, and a flat in Riga valued at 180,000 euros, received on 12 January 2024. She declined to explain the origin in detail, citing family privacy, and said gifts from relatives had been declared and that suspicions could be taken to law-enforcement agencies. Fedotov said the money was his, sent legally to help a daughter raising four children, and that he had given her the flat after travel to Latvia became impractical.

On 24 September 2026 Foreign Minister Baiba Braže, of New Unity, placed Fedotov on the list of undesirable persons, barring entry indefinitely, without stating the grounds. In August 2026, during a State Duma campaign, the arms trafficker Viktor Bout visited the plant; Fedotov said the visitors had asked to use a hall and that he belonged to no party.

Istanbul Convention and social legislation

Sovereign Power, then outside the Saeima, publicly opposed the Council of Europe's Istanbul Convention on violence against women and domestic violence, in force for Latvia from 1 May 2024. On 30 October 2025, the day the Saeima voted 56 to 32, with two abstentions, to denounce the treaty, the party held a picket of about 20 people outside parliament in favour of withdrawal and called officials' comments "ugly manipulation and emotional violence against decision-makers". The evening before, about 5,000 people had rallied against leaving, and a citizens' initiative had passed 20,000 signatures.

The bill came from Latvia First, not Sovereign Power, with support from other opposition groups and the Union of Greens and Farmers; New Unity and the Progressives opposed it. On 3 November President Edgars Rinkēvičs returned the law for a second review, citing unanswered questions and the contradictory signal of ratifying and denouncing the treaty in one term. On 5 November the Saeima set a proposal deadline of 1 November 2026, leaving the decision to the next parliament, by 53 votes to 18.

Demands for scrutiny of the party

Justice Minister Edvards Smiltēns asked the Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau (KNAB), the State Security Service (VDD), the Constitution Protection Bureau (SAB) and the Financial Intelligence Unit to examine the gifts and their origin. SAB director Egils Zviedris said the bureau had already informed the National Security Council and the highest officials because of security risks, and that there was not yet evidence on which to bar Stepaņenko from standing; he invoked the presumption of innocence. President Rinkēvičs and Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs said they were briefed only that September; both said the services, not politicians, should reach conclusions. KNAB and the VDD said they would assess the information within their remits.

On 25 September 2026 New Unity asked Prosecutor General Armīns Meisters to review the party and, if violations were found, to seek its liquidation. The letter cited the gifts, reports that Fedotov's firm filled Russian military orders, and 39,430 euros donated since 2022 by Stepaņenko and her husband, Vjačeslavs Stepaņenko, as grounds for concern about influence from an aggressor state's government. It also cited programme aims to end conscription, cut defence spending, stop support for Ukraine, restore Russian-language schooling and speed citizenship for non-citizens, and candidates it linked to the Latvian Russian Union and to the former aide of convicted spy Jānis Ādamsons. The request invoked the statutory ban on a party acting against the independence or territorial integrity of Latvia or other democracies. Stepaņenko called this pre-election publicity. She said she had been an official since 2014, that her father and the gifts had long been declared, and that the party donations were her own taxed Latvian income, about 13 percent of it, not her father's money, while conceding that his support had affected her wealth. She said agencies had told her they had no further questions; the outlet reporting that account noted it had not been independently checked.

A separate financing dispute, not about the gifts, produced no criminal finding. On 7 October 2026 the Administrative Regional Court annulled a KNAB decision of 1 August 2023 that had classed an unpaid video contract with a member as an illegal contribution, because its stated value exceeded 30 percent of that member's prior-year income, and had ordered repayment. The Supreme Court had earlier held that services with a monetary value fall under donation limits, unlike ordinary party work, and the October judgment could still be appealed.

Place in the party system

Voters and competitors

In the 3 October 2026 Saeima election, Sovereign Power/Alliance of Young Latvians finished third in Latvia, with 94,211 votes (11.7% of valid envelopes) and 15 seats, behind the United List (35.3%, 41 seats) and Latvia First (13.1%, 17). For Stability! (2.0%), the Union of Greens and Farmers (4.4%, absent from the Saeima for the first time in 24 years) and Harmony Centre (0.8%) all missed the 5% threshold.

The alliance was strongest in constituencies with large Russian-speaking populations. It took 44,959 votes in Riga, about 16.3% of valid envelopes, ahead of Latvia First, and 14,953 in Latgale, about 17.3%, where Latvia First led with 29.1%.

Latvian public media’s English election guide labelled the alliance “populist/family values”. A post-election note on the same site called Latvia First Trumpist, described both parties as seen as soft on Russia, and observed that their combined share of about 24% resembled the totals Harmony once recorded among Russian-speakers. University of Latvia political scientist Jānis Ikstens told LTV’s De facto that the two lists were now the main “magnets” for Eastern Slavic votes: Latvia First for the more moderate former Harmony voter, the alliance for the more radical one, with Russia mentioned less often than by For Stability!. Councillor Nikolajs Kabanovs said Jūlija Stepaņenko appealed to a diffuse protest electorate, whereas Aleksejs Rosļikovs had argued for better relations with Russia and Belarus. Stepaņenko rejected that “foreign coat”. The same report said politicians from the Latvian Russian Union, the party once represented by Tatjana Ždanoka, had joined her list, that Latvia First had courted Russian-speakers without calling itself a Russian party, and that Harmony Centre leader Jānis Urbanovičs wanted the party’s activity brought to an end. The Foundation for European Progressive Studies, describing For Stability! as Eurosceptic and populist, wrote that only these lists had competed for Russian-speaking voters, and that the United List had most likely taken nearly all of the Greens and Farmers’ support. Political scientist Juris Rozenvalds credited part of the alliance’s success to the National Alliance and called the new group “a ghost that brings things to the boil”.

Coalition arithmetic after 2026

A majority in the 100-seat Saeima is 51. The United List’s 41 seats reach 51 with the National Alliance alone and 58 if New Unity’s seven are added; The Progressives, also on ten seats, are another route to 51. Latvia First and the alliance hold 32 seats together, two short of the one-third that can suspend a law for a referendum.

On 4 October Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs said the United List would not govern with Ainārs Šlesers and Latvia First, whose promises he called impossible to carry out, and would not yet commit to the National Alliance or New Unity. New Unity’s Edmunds Jurēvics ruled out any coalition that included Latvia First or the alliance “directly or indirectly”. The Progressives’ Andris Šuvajevs set a “red line” against both Šlesers and Stepaņenko. On 6 October United List co-chair Edgars Tavars said that even if Stepaņenko agreed to “everything”, “we would of course not take them”. He added that President Edgars Rinkēvičs had drawn no red lines, that the party sought a coalition based on what Tavars called Western values, and that a minority cabinet had not been excluded.

Stepaņenko told Latvian Radio that the result was “quite a dignified representation”. Asked whether the alliance would sabotage from opposition, she said: “If exposing lies and stopping theft is what you call sabotage, then you can call it that.” She expected the balance of forces to shift over four years, and allies on bills such as abolishing the housing tax and electing the president. On 7 October Šlesers offered Latvia First’s votes, including on the budget, for a Kulbergs cabinet that cut the administration, used a “government of professionals” and promoted the birth rate; alliance deputy Ļubova Švecova said the faction would back proposed ministry mergers without expecting them. Public media reported that the United List was not considering the Progressives or Latvia First as coalition partners, with both a two-party and a three-party cabinet still under discussion.