VIEWS FROM THE CAPITALS
Nostalgia appeal could brighten LITHUANIA's dismal political landscape
Spring 2008
A tectonic shift taking place among Lithuania’s centre-right parties has the potential to transform the Community’s political landscape in time for this year’s general election.
The opposition Conservative party is amalgamating with fellow centre-right parties and is in coalition talks with the Liberal Movement, which is popular with students and young entrepreneurs. But there is far more than traditional party politics going on. The Conservatives are also trying to form a broadly based alliance comparable to the popular Sąjūdis movement that brought Lithuania to independence 20 years ago.
This alliance goes under the working title “The Right Alternative”, and the Conservatives want to bring a number of popular non-political organisations into it. They have nominated a highly respected human rights lawyer, Kęstutis Čilinskas, as a candidate in a parliamentary by-election, and although a non-party member he beat the leader of the populist Labour Party, Viktor Uspaskih. Encouraged by this, the Conservatives have been talking to other prominent public figures to see if they, too, might stand for election on a centre-right ticket. “Celebrity” candidates could go a long way towards restoring a modicum of public confidence in the parliamentary process, which has been damaged by factionalism and government indecision in the face of economic downturn.
Not that Lithuanians could yet be described as excited by political news. The newspapers could spare no more than a few lines for the announcement that the Homeland Union − the official title of the Conservative party − had joined up with the nationalist Tautininkai Union to be amalgamated as the Christian Democrats. Few Lithuanians appear to think it is a significant move, perhaps because neither the Tautininkai nor the Conservatives did well at the last general election in 2004. Sceptics inside the opposition party fear the merger will simply compound the Conservatives’ reputation as an old-fashioned “mothball party”.
But if the Christian Democrats can retain the 5% of the national vote they won in recent municipal elections, they could return members to parliament next time around and significantly boost the Conservatives’ 17% of seats. The Christian Democrats appeal to church-goers and the rural population, useful constituents if The Right Alternative is to win widespread support. The value of the Tautininkai Union is largely symbolic; it is heir to the dominant party of the inter-war republic and a nostalgic reminder of times past for the older generation. The Liberal Movement currently holds nine of the 141 seats in the Seimas, Lithuania’s parliament, making it a valuable potential coalition partner that would bring younger voters into the alliance. Add in some non-party celebrities and the Conservatives hope to have a winning formula for the general election, which is due in the autumn.
So what will The Right Alternative be up against? Lithuania is at the moment run by a weak coalition government, led by the Social Democrats with just 22% of the seats in the Seimas. The country is on the brink of explosive inflation and a sharp slowdown in economic growth, and is suffering from rampant corruption and shortages of labour due to mass emigration since Lithuania joined the European Union. Yet the government’s response has, by and large, been to throw up its hands in despair and leave much-needed public sector reforms on hold.
But elections in Lithuania are never simple two-horse races. There are a total of eight party factions in the highly fragmented parliament, spanning the political spectrum from populist fringe through to the centre-left and centre-right. Nor is there any guarantee that this will change at the next election; the centre-right would need 40% of Seimas seats to guarantee a controlling stake and the right to form the next government. Emigration has leached the country’s younger and more self-reliant and enterprising generation away, and the remaining population is more inclined to support populist and leftist parties. The rise of populism seems to be the price that Lithuania must pay for European integration and the free movement of labour.
A united centre-right front, led by renowned individuals and promising a solid reform package, might be enough to win over the undecided voters who constitute up to a third of the electorate. There are recent precedents for such a shift in other Baltic countries that have elected centre-right governments. The key to Lithuania’s next election seems to lie in whether The Right Alternative can present a credible front, and overcome the perceptions of parliamentary incompetence and political stagnation that dominate politics today.