Jānis Urbanovičs

Jānis Urbanovičs
Jānis Urbanovičs
Member of the Saeima
	In office; 1994–2022
Leader of Social Democratic Party "Harmony" and Opposition
	Incumbent
	Assumed office ; 2010
Personal details
Born	23 March 1959 (age 65); Rēzekne, Latvia
Political party	National Harmony Party (1995–2010); Latvia University of Agriculture
Profession	hydraulic engineer

Jānis Urbanovičs (born 23 March 1959) is a Latvian politician and author. He has been a member of the Saeima since 1994. From 2005–2010 Urbanovičs was chairman of the National Harmony Party and from 2010–2014 and again since 2019 the chairman of Harmony.^[1]

Biography

Urbanovičs was born in 1959 in

cabinetmaking

, which is still a hobby today. He then worked as a Chief Engineer leading various construction projects.

In 1984, during the early years of Perestroika, he became a part of the LĻKJS, the communist youth league where he soon gained the position of the first secretary of the Central Committee of Komsomol in the Latvian SSR. Under his direction, the organisation held conferences, discussion panels and training courses. In 1986 he actively participated in the organisation of The Chautauqua Conferences in Jūrmala on the Soviet Union–United States relations.^[2]

In 1994, Urbanovičs became a member of the first Saeima since the restoration of Latvian independence. From 2005 he was the head of the Harmony Centre electoral alliance.^[3] In 2010 he became the chairman of the newly merged Harmony.^[4] In 2012 Urbanovičs was denied the highest category access to work with state secrets.^[5]

According to the public benefit organization Delna, Urbanovičs had attended only 31% of committee meetings in the 11th Saeima, making him the leading Saeima deputy in missed parliamentary commissions.^[6] In 2012 the Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau launched an investigation into Urbanovičs for attempting to defraud 20% of his salary as a Saeima deputy by having another person register him as being present in an April 26 parliamentary meeting, while Urbanovičs was in Moscow.^[7]

In 2014 Urbanovičs blamed the

Abrene County as a partial justification.^[8]

Since 1994, Urbanovičs has participated in parliamentary delegations for liaising with the CIS and Central Asian countries. He maintains contacts with the leaders of those countries and has received awards for strengthening cultural and economic relations. He also contributed to the signing of Latvian cooperation agreements with China, Turkey, Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan.

In 1998 Urbanovičs together with the chairman of the

Igor Yurgens became one of the founders of the Baltic Forum,^[9] which over time evolved into a dialogue platform for post-Soviet states. He also initiated the annual Be-La-Rus youth camp, which takes place on the borders of Latvia, Russia and Belarus.^[10]

Books

Urbanovičs together with

Ulmanis authoritarian regime, Soviet and German occupations and Soviet re-occupation – "The Draft of the Future: Latvia 1934–1941" (2011), "The Draft of the Future: Latvia 1941–1947" (2012), "The Draft of the Future: Latvia 1948–1955" (2013)^[11]

and "The Draft of the Future: Latvia 1956–1991" (2016).