Andris Šķēle is a Latvian politician and Business oligarch

Business oligarch

Business oligarch is a near-synonym of the term "business magnate", borrowed by the English speaking and western media from post-Soviet parlance to describe the huge, fast-acquired wealth of some businessmen of the former Soviet republics during the privatization in Russia and other post-Soviet...

. He has served two terms as Prime Minister of Latvia

Prime Minister of Latvia

The Prime Minister of Latvia is the most powerful member of the Government of the Republic of Latvia, and presides over the Latvian Cabinet of Ministers...

 from 21 December 1995 to 7 August 1997, and from 16 July 1999 to 5 May 2000.

During his first term of office, he was not associated with any political party

Political party

A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...

. During his second term, he was a member of the People's Party

People's Party (Latvia)

The People's Party was a centre-right political party in Latvia. It described itself as a conservative party.Tautas partija was founded in 1998 by Andris Šķēle, a businessman and former prime minister, who was the chairman of the party until 2002. Because of Šķēle's powerful personality, many...

 which he founded in 1998. In 2003 he resigned from politics but remained, as he stated, "ordinary member" of the People's Party and was thought to have a considerable behind-the-scene influence in party. He returned to politics in 2009 and has resumed his role as the leader of the People's Party.

Andris Šķēle has often been associated with various corruption scandals and through his high political connections has been able to avoid prosecution.

Andris Šķēle is one of the wealthiest people in Latvia. The Baltic Times

The Baltic Times

The Baltic Times is an independent general interest weekly covering the news, business and culture issues of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania....

newspaper ranks him as the 15th wealthiest person in Baltic states

Baltic states

The term Baltic states refers to the Baltic territories which gained independence from the Russian Empire in the wake of World War I: primarily the contiguous trio of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania ; Finland also fell within the scope of the term after initially gaining independence in the 1920s.The...

, with a net worth of about 60 million euros.