Linas Jegelevičius
A new book titled «The Whistleblower and the President» (Pranešėjas ir Prezidentas), reveals more backstage details and nuances about Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda’s rift with the then Foreign and Defence ministers, Linas Linkevičius and Raimundas Karoblis has stirred ripples.
Both analysts and ordinary people scratch their heads wondering about the time of the book release – a new presidential electoral campaign is expected to start in a half-year or so, and how deep in trouble it can get the head of state.
«Although the new presidential election is slated for May 2024, the campaign will definitely start later this year,» Vytautas Dumbliauskas, associate professor of Mykolas Romeris University, told BNN.
He says the president due to inexperience may have seemed a little bit sluggish – with sanctions on Belarus too – at the inception of his presidency.
With the news on the book being in the headlines, the office of the president is mum. No comment has followed the release of the book.
«I am not surprised. First of all, the advisors have not probably read the book yet. They may want to see reactions first and, if necessary, do something on damage control then» Lauras Bielinis, a well-known Lithuanian political analyst and a former presidential advisor, told BNN.
Bielinis said when in France, he saw heaps of books on the-then French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and his escapades.
«In that sense, any Lithuanian president is overlooked – we have very few books about our presidents. Even if the allegations in the book turn up to be false, the president should swallow the pill with dignity and respect,» the analyst pondered.
Witnesses interviewed by the book’s authors, Lithuania’s famous journalists Davidas Pancerovas and Birutė Davidonytė, who in 2019 released another scandalous book about transgressions of the-then Lithuanian Prime Minister, Saulius Skvernelis, claim now that the president’s main clash with Linkevičius was over sanctions for Minsk after the rigged presidential election in Belarus in autumn of 2020.
Allegedly, the president also found himself on a different turf with Raimundas Karoblis, Skvernelis’ Defence minister in the 2016-2020 Cabinet, over a candidate to lead the country’s military intelligence service.
In early 2021, Nausėda drew ire from the Homeland Union, Lithuania’s ruling party, for refusing to appoint the two former ministers-turned-politicians as ambassadors in Washington and Brussels. Nausėda insisted they needed a period to «cool down politically.»
The book tells among other things how Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the maverick Belarusian opposition candidate, fled to Lithuania on the night of August 11, 2020. As a reminder, in late 2020, she threw the gauntlet against the country’s authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko, but with massive protests in Minsk still raging and with opposition members being imprisoned, she took the decision to leave Belarus.
As a result, the European Union commenced mulling sanctions for the Belarusian regime, but, the book says that «Lithuanian diplomats felt that European discussions were slow and sluggish.»
Davidas Pancerovas and Birutė Davidonytė, who work for 15min.lt news portal, suggest that the-then Foreign minister worked out a two-way plan and proposed it to Nausėda – join swiftly the European negotiations on international sanctions and, simultaneously, impose national sanctions on the Belarusian regime.
According to the authors, who cite their sources in the Foreign Ministry, including Linkevičius, Nausėda contested the plan and insisted that any sanctions should, first of all, be coordinated with the Latvians and Estonians.
The indecision by the Lithuanian head-of-state triggered tensions between the president and the minister, the book authors claim.
Despite Nausėda’s disapproval, Linkevičius instructed ministerial staff to start making a list of more than 100 regime representatives Lithuania could sanction.
«The presidential office tried to stop the process,» one source within the ministry claimed, writes LRT.lt, the website of the Lithuanian national broadcaster. «They would write letters to ministerial staff and remove names from the draft lists without any arguments».
Furthermore, exerting pressure on the presidential office, Linkevičius spilled the news about the planned national sanctions to reporters.
«At the time, Linkevičius received a WhatsApp message from Nausėda: if the minister wants to pursue his foreign policy, he should find another republic to represent,» the book reads.
The authors quote people close to Linkevičius, suggesting that jealousy was the reason behind the president’s bitterness.
The book also sheds light on the appointment of the head of the Second Investigation Department under the Ministry of Defence. The standard procedure is simple: a Defence minister appoints a person to lead the military intelligence service.
The book authors claim that then Defence minister Karoblis presented his candidate to Nausėda, Skvernelis, and then chairman of the parliamentary Committee on National Security and Defence, Dainius Gaižauskas.
The latter reportedly two had no objections.
However, Nausėda ostensibly reproached Karoblis during a private conversation and implied that the minister’s candidate lacked intelligence experience and suggested Colonel Saulius Guzevičius and two other possible candidates for the position.
The book claims that the minister realised that all three officers were linked to the Special Operations Forces and subsequently with State Security Department Director Darius Jauniškis, who had served in the Special Operations Forces and did not approve the candidates. No consensus was reached.
Finally, it was agreed during negotiations that Colonel Elegijus Paulavičius would become the new director of military intelligence.
Neither Nausėda himself, nor his office responded to inquiries when this book was being written, the authors say.