Linas Jegelevičius
Although few supported the idea of a snap parliament election, even fewer expected it to crash so quickly: submitted to the Lithuanian parliament Seimas on Tuesday, the 6th of June, it was thumbed down by a majority of the MPs: 66 voted against the proposal, 61 – in favour and eight MPs abstained.
A simple majority of 85 votes was needed to approve the motion during the initial hearing.
The other two coalition partners, the Liberal Movement and the Freedom Party were unanimously against the proposition; 16 MPs of the opposition Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union (LVŽS) voted in favour, one against, and one abstained. Nine Social Democrat MPs voted in favour and two against. Meanwhile, one MP from Democrats “For Lithuania”, the party of the country’s former prime minister Saulius Skvernelis, was in favour of early elections and all other 14 members voted against it.
Notably, the vote showed schism in the Seimas’ ruling conservative Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats (TS-LKD, HU-LCD in English), in which 34 MPs voted in favour, 14 were against and two MPs abstained.
That is a bad omen for Gabrielius Landsbergis,
HU-LCD leader and the current Foreign minister who spearheaded the snap election initiative and who is staving off criticism now. Furthermore, his leadership may be questioned at the party’s Presidium, which convenes later this week.
However, the question on everyone’s lips now is this: what next? Will the Prime Minister, Ingrida Šimonytė, keep her promise to resign after the NATO summit in July? Will the Liberal-Conservative coalition stay intact? And if there are changes to it, who will come forward to form a new coalition?
The prime minister earlier vowed to resign in the middle of July, if the early election motion were voted down.
This would also mean the resignation of the entire Cabinet.
“I think the main question is still the same: will the government resign after the NATO summit? The prime minister has said she will do it. However, the HU-LCD Presidium will undoubtedly do all it can to convince her to stay at the helm of the government. As far as I’ve heard, Šimonytė is still determined to resign. Yet, if I were to guess, I’d predict that she will stay with all her Cabinet,” Tomas Janeliūnas, professor at the Institute of International Relations and Political Science at Vilnius University, told BNN.
Vytautas Dumbliauskas, associate professor of Mykolas Romeris University, told BNN he is “sure” that Šimonytė will stay.
“Look, she has already backtracked from her previous position to resign. So she will perhaps do more in letting the steam cool off and will continue the job. However, the position of the party leader (Gabrielius Landsbergis– L. J.) has been damaged as a result of the snap election voting.
He acted very irresponsibly when introducing the idea.
He certainly must understand that if it comes to the formation of a new Coalition, the Homeland Union will take a lot of beating not only from the current and potentially new coalition partners but also from the President (Gitanas Nausėda – L. J.), who has always had a jaundiced eye against the party and its leader,” the analyst emphasized.
After the vote in the Seimas, Šimonytė said: “I probably allowed myself a bit too much when I said that because I am not in the government on my own, but the presidium has made the decision to consider this issue, so the presidium will consider this issue in any case.”
“I am not personally in the government, I am delegated by the party, and my decisions, whatever they may be, will still have to be discussed by the Presidium. When the presidium discusses it, then I will announce my decision,” the prime minister added, explaining the change in her position on Tuesday.
Presenting the motion,
Gabrielius Landsbergis said a snap election was needed to reset the political system.
“I invite you to support the political system’s reset through the renewal of voter confidence. So you have a very simple choice: a general amnesty or a reset through voter confidence,” Landsbergis told the Seimas on Tuesday, the 6th of June.
The conservatives proposed a snap election in response to an expenses scandal shaking Lithuania.
An investigation by Laisvė TV star Andrius Tapinas has unveiled systemic abuses in claiming reimbursement by local councilors for transportation and office expenses, sometimes without so much as presenting receipts.
According to him, some municipal politicians maxed out their expense allowances, despite movement restrictions and remote meetings
during Covid-19 lockdowns. Moreover, some may fake their expense reports, supplying fake receipts to justify their reimbursement claims.
Amid the scandal, Education Minister Jurgita Šiugždinienė, who was formerly in the Kaunas City Council, was grilled over her 600- 800 euros-a-month transportation expense remuneration.
Although the minister claimed to have done everything by the book, she resigned and paid back over 10 000 euros to the Kaunas budget.
In the wake of the scandal, the Lithuanian parliament has drafted amendments on paying salaries to local government politicians instead of the existing payments to cover their office expenses, the use of which has recently sparked a scandal in the country. Under the proposed amendments, council members, who currently do not receive a salary but can claim reimbursements for work-related expenses, would be paid one-fifth of the mayor’s salary.
Mayors’ salaries depend on the size of their municipality. Mayors receive an average pre-tax pay of around 4,000 euros, so the salary of a municipal councilor would be around 800 euros before tax.
For now, the ruling HU-LCD is reeling off from the scandal – scathed.
According to a new survey by Vilmorus, published by the Lietuvos Rytas daily last weekend, the HU-LCD dropped from second to fourth place in the party popularity ratings. If the Seimas election were to be held now, 7.9 percent of respondents would vote for it, down from 9.9 percent in April. The opposition Farmers and Greens Unions overtook HU-LCD in the party popularity ratings and moved up from third to second place, with 9,4 percent saying they would vote for the party in May. The opposition Democratic Union “For Lithuania” went up from fourth to third place, with 8.2 percent of support.
The Lithuanian Social Democratic Party remains the most popular party in the country, with 18.1 percent.