4 ŽDANOKA v. LATVIA JUDGMENT asserting the need to construct a new society based, inter alia, on Latvian identity and values, and emphasising the need to restore State independence. 16. The first independent elections under the Soviet regime took place on Latvian territory in March 1990. The applicant was elected to the Supreme Council (Augstākā Padome) of the Latvian SSR as a representative for the Pļavnieki constituency in Riga. She subsequently joined the CPL’s local branch. In April 1990 this branch selected her to attend the CPL’s 25th Congress, where she was elected to the party’s Central Committee for Supervision and Audit. According to copies of that committee’s minutes, the applicant was a member of a sub-committee responsible for supervising the implementation of decisions and activities arising from the CPL programme. 17. At the same congress, a group of delegates expressed their disagreement with the CPL’s general policy, which remained loyal to the Soviet Union and the CPSU. According to those delegates, the CPL was opposed to any democratisation of public life and sought to maintain the status quo of the Soviet rule. These delegates publicly announced their withdrawal from the CPL and established a new party, the “Independent Communist Party of Latvia”, which immediately declared its support for Latvian independence and for a multi-party political system. The applicant did not join the dissident delegates and remained with the CPL. 2. Latvia’s Declaration of Independence 18. On 4 May 1990 the Supreme Council adopted a Declaration on the Restoration of the Independence of the Republic of Latvia, which declared Latvia’s incorporation into the USSR unlawful and void and restored legal force to the fundamental provisions of the Latvian Constitution (Satversme) of 1922. However, paragraph 5 of the Declaration introduced a transition period, aimed at a gradual restoration of genuine State sovereignty as each institutional tie with the USSR was severed. During that transition period, various provisions of the Constitution of the Latvian SSR would remain in force. A special governmental commission was given responsibility for negotiating with the Soviet Union on the basis of the Russo-Latvian Peace Treaty of 11 August 1920. The above-mentioned Declaration was adopted by 139 out of a total of 201 Supreme Council members, with one abstention. Fifty-seven members of the Līdztiesība parliamentary bloc (“Equal Rights”, in fact the CPL group), including the applicant, did not vote. On the same day, 4 May 1990, the Central Committee of the CPL adopted a resolution strongly criticising the Declaration and calling on the President of the Soviet Union to intervene. 19. On 7 May 1990 the Supreme Council approved the government of the independent Republic of Latvia.