Ivo Kalninš

Ivo Kalninš (Born October 11th, 1965) is a Doggerland Politician, former leader of the Steibo Farmer's Union and the former leader of the Centra Party.

Early Life
Ivo Kalninš was born on October 11th, 1965 to Jānis and Anna Kalninš, two lutheran Latvian immigrants that fled Doggerland in the 1950s. The Kalninš had purchased a small farm in the rural southeast of Centra province, near the town of Orchardville. Ivo was the eldest child of the Kalninš family and had 2 younger brothers (Ivars and Strādulis) and one younger sister (Dace). Kalninš excelled at school and was accepted into Richelau College in Hoovsted on a academic scholarship to become an engineer in 1982 at 17.

Early Career
Kalninš studied for four years at Richelau before graduating in 1986 with an degree in engineering. Kalninš worked as an engineer and lived well off in Hoovsted until tragedy struck in early 1989. Kalninš' father Jānis was severely injured in a farming accident and Kalninš was forced to return home to Orchardville to take care for his mother and preseve the farm until his youngest brother Strādulis could finish agricultural college. Soon after returning home in early 1989, Kalninš fell in love with farming and when he moved back to Hoovsted in early 1990, Kalninš quit his job as an engineer, bought a farm in the Platteland municiaplity of northern Steibo and joined the fledgling Steibo Farmer's Union. Just a few months after joining, longtime leader Hermann Strange retired and Kalninš decided to run for leader. Despite being a new member, he was able to win the leadership election with 55% of the vote, beating out deputy leader Steven Paulsen.

Political Career
Upon becoming leader of the SFU, Kalninš reformed the structure of the party to make it more democratic, including elections for deputy leader and most important party positions. In early 1991, Kalninš called a party convention at his farm in Platteland to create a new party manifesto. This move was incredibly popular with the party members who had grown apart from the corrupt and weak party establishment. The new manifesto was very popular among non members as well and the SFU experienced a massive membership boom. Riding off of his newfound popularity, Kalninš ran for Chief Executive of Platteland in 1992 and easily won, becoming the first member of the SFU to be elected to office since the 1970s. As Chief Executive, Kalninš enacted many reforms including expanding the paved road network to farms that were on dirt or gravel roads, improving funding for rural schools and hospitals, and raising taxes on large landowners.