Sámi politics
Archeological findings do indeed confirm that a certain degree of class society arose among the Sámi, due to the fur trade, in the early Middle Ages.
This person may be simply the head of the wealthiest or otherwise most successful household, a natural leader[3] or even elected by the council of families.
[4] Elements of the siida system have survived among the Sámi who turned to reindeer herding and have remained semi-nomadic to this day.
The final agreement led to the creation of the Lapp Codicil of 1751 which admitted some rights to the indigenous people.
[8] Following World War II, Finland lost the territories between Norway and the Soviet Union, leaving the borders as they are presently.
In the mid-19th century, Tsar Alexander II of Russia initiated wide-ranging reforms in a democratic direction.
During these reforms an assembly for the Sámi population was established on the Russian side of Sápmi in 1868, the Kola Sobbar.
This assembly met annually in Kola to debate and even decide certain issues of relevance to the indigenous people.
[9] In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a movement started in Norway's Finnmark and Troms counties to save Sámi culture and language.
They were both activists in the Labour Party, which was one of the movements in Norway most positive to the Sámi cause at the time.
Two of the most important leaders in this movement were Elsa Laula Renberg and Daniel Mortensson, both South Sámi.
[11] It also holds great symbolic value for the Sámi per se, and the official 'Sámi People's Day' was set to February 6, the date when the meeting began, to commemorate the occasion.
It currently has 21 representatives, who are elected every four years by direct vote from the municipalities in the Sami Domicile Area.
[15][16] As of 2017[update], the Kola Sámi Assembly was not recognised as a legislative body ("parliament") by the Russian federal nor local Murmansk Oblast governments under the pretext of "combatting separatism" and remains a purely representative organ with unclear relations with the government.
There is also a parallel committee of Sami people elected by the regional authorities, headed by Kildin Sámi Lyubov' Vatonena.
