Category Archives: Lithuania

Lithuania

Lithuania – Government has a majority again

This post comes from a report in The Baltic Times. It seems as if the centre-right government in Lithuania is now officially a majority government (again) rather than a minority government.

The 2010 Data Review of the European Journal of Political Research has just been published. The article on Lithuania by Algis Krupavičius reports that at the end of 2009 there was a four-party coalition, comprising the Homeland Union/Lithuanian Christian Democrats, the National Resurrection Party, the Liberal Movement of Lithuanian Republic, and the Liberal and Centre Union. He reports that the governing parties enjoyed 71 seats in parliament. There are 141 seats in total. So, at this point the government seems to have a majority.

Anyway, according to the report in The Baltic Times, it seems as if during the course of 2010 the government’s majority declined to 69 seats. However, in November 2010 various party switching returned the level of government support to 71 seats. So, once again, there is a majority government in Lithuania.

Lithuania – Two by elections

In Lithuania two by elections to the Seimas have recently been held. They were caused by the election of two deputies to the EP in June. They belonged to the Order and Justice party and the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania. The government is a centre-right coalition led by the TS-LKD: Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats.

The elections were held in the constituencies of Vilnius-Šalčininkai and Šilalė-Šilutė. Here are the results from the Central Electoral Commission of the Republic of Lithuania:

Vilnius-Šalčininkai (15 November) –

Leonard TALMONT (LLRA/LWPA: Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania), 77.81% – elected at the first ballot.
Alina GOREVAJA (Labour Party), 7.04%
Vidmantas ŽILIUS (TS-LKD: Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats) 5.38%
There were 5 other candidates, none of whom won more than 4% of the vote.

This constituency was previously held by a deputy who joined the Order and Justice parliamentary group in 2008.

Šilalė-Šilutė – 1st round (15 November)

Jonas GUDAUSKAS (TS-LKD: Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats) 29.43%
Remigijus ŽEMAITAITIS (TT: Order and Justice) 28.55%
Osvaldas ŠARMAVIČIUS (LSDP: Social Democratic Party of Lithuania) 13.61%
Raimundas VAITIEKUS (LiCS: Liberal and Centrist Union) 9.8%
Daiva VAITKEVIČIUTĖ-REKAŠIENĖ (NS – SL: New Union – Social Liberals) 6.57%
Algimantas MATULEVIČIUS (PDP: Civic Democratic Party) 5.95%
There were 3 other candidates, none of whom won more than 4% of the vote.

Šilalė-Šilutė – 2nd round (29 November)

Remigijus ŽEMAITAITIS (TT: Order and Justice) 57.7%
Jonas GUDAUSKAS (TS-LKD: Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats) 42.3%

This constituency was previously held by the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania.

Overall, there was a gain for the Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania and a loss for the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania.

Lithuania – EP election

The EP election was held in Lithuania on Sunday.

The turnout was 20.9%. The EU is reporting the following results (2004 in brackets):

TS-LKD: Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats – 26.8%, 4 seats (12.6%, 2 for TS, plus 2.8%, 0 for LKD)
LSDP: Social Democratic Party of Lithuania, 18.6%, 3 seats (14.4%, 2)
TT: Order and Justice – 12.2%, 2 seats (6.8%, 1 as the Liberal Democratic Party)
DP: Labour Party – 8.8%, 1 seat (30.2%, 5)
LLRA/LWPA: Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania – 8.5%, 1 seat (5.7%, 0)
LRLS: Liberals’ Movement of the Republic of Lithuania – 7.4%, 1 seat
LiCS: Liberal and Centrist Union – 3.5% seats (11.2%, 2)
LCP: Lithuanian Center Party – 3.1%, 0 seats
KKSS: Christian Conservative Social Union – 2.9%, 0 seats (2.6%, 0)
FRONTO – 2.4%, 0 seats
TPP: National Resurrection Party – 1%, 0 seats

The incumbent government is a coalition of the Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats, the National Resurrection Party, the Liberals’ Movement, and the Liberal and Centrist Union. The election was only late last year (see previous post). Also, the presidential election took place only last month (see previous post). So, this election was very much a poor relation. The failure of mainstream left parties to do well was confirmed and the performance of the incumbent TS party was noteworthy. However, this election is unlikely to redefine Lithuanian politics.

An article on the 2004 EP election in Lithuania can be found here.

Lithuania – Presidential election

Lithuania went to the polls on Sunday to elect the president.

The Central Electoral Commission reports that the turnout was 51.71%.

According the CEC, the candidates won the following support:

Dalia Grybauskaitė (non-party) – 69.08%
Algirdas Butkevičius (Lithuanian Social Democratic Party) – 11.83%
Valentinas Mazuronis (Order and Justice) – 6.16%
Valdemar Tomaševski (Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania) – 4.74%
Kazimira Danutė Prunskienė (Lithuanian Peasant Popular Union) – 3.91%
Loreta Graužinienė (Labour Party) – 3.61%
Česlovas Jezerskas – 0.67%

The turnout figure is crucial because Art. 81 of the Constitution states: “The candidate for the post of President of the Republic who, during the first election round in which at least a half of the voters participate, receives the votes of more than half of all the voters who voted in the election, shall be deemed the elected candidate. If less than a half of the registered voters participate in the election, the candidate who receives the greatest number of votes, but no less than one-third of votes of all the voters, shall be deemed the elected candidate. If, during the first election round, no single candidate gets the requisite number of votes, a repeat election shall be organized after two weeks between the two candidates who received the greatest number of votes.”

In other words, Grybauskaitė is elected at the first ballot!

Grybauskaitė is currently Lithuania’s EU Commissioner and is responsible for Financial Programming and the Budget. Her EU profile page is here.

Cohabitation – Lithuania

This is a series of posts that records the cases of cohabitation in countries with semi-presidential constitutions. Cohabitation is defined as the situation where the president and prime minister are from different parties and where the president’s party is not represented in the cabinet. Presidents classed as non-party cannot generate any periods of cohabitation.

Here is my list of cohabitations in Lithuania:

Nov 1996 – Feb 1998
President – Algirdas Brazauskas (LDDP); PM – Gediminas Vagnorius (TS-LK): Coalition – TS-LK, LKDP, LCS

Feb 2003 – Apr 2004
President – Rolandas Paksas (LLS/LLP); PM – Algirdas Brazauskas (LSDP); Coalition – LSDP, LDDP (merged with LSDP), LRS (part of Brazauskas electoral coalition), NU-SL

Source of party affiliations: www.worldstatesmen.org/Lithuania.htm

Party abbreviations:
LDDP: Democratic Labor Party of Lithuania
TS-LK: Homeland Union-Conservatives of Lithuania
LKDP: Lithuanian Christian-Democratic Party
LCS: Lithuania Centre Union
LSDP: Lithuanian Social Democratic Party
LRS: Union of Russians in Lithuania
NU-SL: New Union (Social Liberals)

Government updates – Lithuania, Slovenia

Following recent elections, there are new governments in Lithuania and Slovenia.

In Lithuania, Andrius Kubilius, leader of the conservative Homeland Union- Lithuanian Christian Democrats, will be the new prime minister. He will head a four-party with three other centre-right parties, the Liberal and Center Union, the National Resurrection Party and the Liberal Movement. The coalition will have 79 of the 141 seats in parliament.

In Slovenia, the Social Democrat leader, Borut Pahor, is the new prime minister. He heads a four-party coalition that was approved by the Slovenian parliament last Friday. In addition to the Social Democrats, the other parties are two centre-left parties, Zares and Liberal Democracy (LDS), as well as the pensioners’ party Desus. The coalition will have the support of 50 of the 90 seats in parliament.

Lithuania – Legislative election (2nd round)

The second round of the election to the Seimas in Lithuania was held on 26 October. The combined results of the two ballots are as follows.

Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats, 44 seats
National Resurrection Party, 16 seats
Liberals’ Movement of the Republic of Lithuania, 11 seats
Liberal and Centre Union, 8 seats
Order and Justice, 15 seats
Social Democratic Party of Lithuania, 26 seats
Coalition Labour Party + Youth, 10 seats
Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania, 3 seats
Lithuanian Peasant Popular Union, 3 seats
New Union (Social Liberals), 1 seat
Others, 0 seats

Baltic Times reports that the leaders of four centre-right parties have signed an agreement to form a government coalition. The parties are: the Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats, the National Resurrection Party, the Liberal Movement, and the Liberal and Centrist Union. This would give the coalition 79/141 seats. The prospective PM is the leader of the Homeland Union, Andrius Kubilius.

Lithuania – Legislative election (1st round)

The first round of the election to the Seimas in Lithuania was held on 12 October. This was the party list round and elected 70 deputies. The remaining 71 deputies are elected in single-member constituencies this weekend.

Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats, 19.72%, 18 seats
National Resurrection Party, 15.09%, 13 seats
Order and Justice, 12.68%, 11 seats
Social Democratic Party of Lithuania, 11.72%, 10 seats
Coalition Labour Party + Youth, 8.99%, 8 seats
Liberals’ Movement of the Republic of Lithuania, 5.73%, 5 seats
Liberal and Centre Union, 5.34%, 5 seats
Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania, 4.79%, 0 seats
Lithuanian Peasant Popular Union, 3.73%, 0 seats
New Union (Social Liberals), 3.64%, 0 seats
Fronto, 3.24%, 0 seats

No other party won more than 2% of the vote.

The vote is likely to result in a change of government after the second round of the election.

Electoral Geography has a nice map of the party support.

Semi-presidentialism in the FSU – When did it begin?

The Former Soviet Union (FSU) is the home of a number of semi-presidential countries. In terms of their current constitutions, there are some unequivocal cases of semi-presidentialism: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, Russia and Ukraine. Previously, Moldova was unequivocally semi-presidential too. The situation in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan is a little more ambiguous. In both cases, parliament ratifies the president’s decrees that appoint and dismiss the prime minister. It is debatable as to whether this is sufficient to constitute a semi-presidential constitution. The level of responsibility to parliament is low and, in any case, responsibility is only individual and not collective.

Sticking to the unequivocal cases, the question is when do we date the start of semi-presidentialism? In the case of Georgia, the answer is easy. As per a previous post, it became semi-presidential in 2004 after a constitutional amendment. For the other countries, the dates of the first independence constitutions are as follows: Armenia (1995), Azerbaijan (1995), Belarus (1994), Kazakhstan (1993), Kyrgyzstan (1993), Lithuania (1992), Moldova (1994), Russia (1993) and Ukraine (1996).

While these are the dates of the first constitutions, it is common to think of semi-presidentialism starting earlier. This is because in the period immediately following the declaration of independence, and prior to the passage of the new constitution, most of these countries grafted a directly elected president onto the existing Soviet-era constitution. So, for example, the first presidential elections under Soviet-era constitutions were held as follows: Armenia (1991), Azerbaijan (1992), Kazakhstan (1991), Kyrgyzstan (1991), Moldova (1991), Russia (1991) and Ukraine (1991). Given these constitutions were, nominally, parliamentary, this combination of a direct presidential election and a parliamentary system seems to create the conditions for semi-presidentialism. (In Belarus and Lithuania, the first direct presidential elections took place under the first independence constitution. So, there is no doubt about when they began to be semi-presidential.)

All the same, I think we have to be a little careful as to when we date the beginning of semi-presidentialism and for two reasons. Firstly, I am not sure that there are consolidated constitutional documents prior to the passage of the first constitutions. Certainly, I have been unable to find them. If they do exist, then please let me know where to get hold of them. In the absence of a consolidated document, it is to difficult to verify the start date of semi-presidentialism. Secondly, even if there were consolidated documents, would they indicate semi-presidentialism? According to the 1978 constitutions of the socialist republics of the USSR, it is certainly the case that the Council of Ministers was responsible to the parliament (Supreme Soviet) and that there was a person who occupied the position of Chairman of the Council of Ministers. Moreover, prime ministers certainly existed in the newly independent countries from an early point: Armenia (1990), Azerbaijan (1991), Kazakhstan (1991), Kyrgyzstan (1991), Moldova (1990), Russia (1991) and Ukraine (1990). Again, though, in the absence of consolidated documents, it is difficult to verify the specific start date of semi-presidentialismism. Were there other amendments to the constitution apart from just the direct election of the president? Were there changes to the status of the prime minister and cabinet? And so on.

The precise start date of semi-presidentialism can be important because a couple of these countries experienced a brief period of democracy but then collapsed. For example, according to Freedom House Azerbaijan was a partial democracy in 1991 and 1992, but collapsed in 1993. The same is true for Kazakhstan from 1991-93 before its collapse in 1994. Studies about the positive or negative effects of semi-presidentialism on partial democracies do not have a large number of cases to go on. Therefore, the decision about whether or not to include two collapses is potentially important. If anyone has any comments, then please let me know.