On
26 October the Second round of the Parliamentary elections took place in Lithuania.
According to the official information from the Head of the Central Election
Commission, Zenonas Vaigauskas, the conservative “Patriotic Union” headed by
the ex-Prime Minister Andrus Kubilus won 44 seats out of 141. The Social
Democrats, which were the ruling party in Lithuania for
seven years came second with 26 seats in the new Parliament. 16 seats went to a
newly created Party of the People’s Revival, consisting of well-known
representatives of show-business in the country. The party of the ex-leader of the
country, Rolandas Paksas managed to occupy 15 seats in the Seim. A pro-Russian
Labour Party, set up by a multi-millionaire of the Russian origin Viktor
Uspaskih, received 10 seats, 11 went to the Liberal’s Movement, 8 – to Liberal-Centrists.
Representation of other political parties in the Seim will be minimal.
It
becomes obvious that the Parliamentary coalition will be comprised of the
representatives of four right-centrists parties: the “Patriotic Union”, the
Party of People’s Revival, Liberal Movement and Liberal-centrists.
Whether the
Lithuanian policy towards Belarus would
change
The
Lithuanian Seim which is to be replaced with the new elected one, there were
two groups on relations with Belarus. One was
headed by a Belarusian Vatslav Stankevich and the other by Rasa Jukniavichene. Mrs.
Jukniavichene, who was re-elected as a Deputy again, is a member of the Presidium
of the party “Patriotic Union”, which won 44 seats. She believes that cooperation
with Belarus if to be
changed will be for the better, “only for the better. The reason being is that
our party is very interested in having European-style relations with Belarus, i.e.
normal. Indeed it would not depend on us only, from the Belarusian regime as
well. If there are further steps forward towards Europe we shall
only welcome that, we are prepared to be so-called advocates of the Belarusian
issue in Europe”.
Ms.
Jukniavichene underlined that the programme of the party envisages pro-European
way of development of Lithuania therefore
its political relations with Belarus Lithuania will be forming depending on the
foreign policy of the Belarusian authorities. Rasa Jukniavichene thinks that the
European Union policy towards Belarus would
depend on a large scale on the democratic tendencies in the policy of the authorities
of the country. As an example she recalled that after the moves of Belarus with regard
to the release of the political prisoners, Brussels partially
suspended the EU sanctions. In Mrs. Jukniavichene’s point of view, Vilnius “has a very
positive attitude with regard to the cooperation with Belarus and would
very much like that the latter, together with Lithuania, found a
decent place in Europe”.
A leader of
the Conservative party, the Chairman of the “Patriotic Union” party, Andrus
Kubilius, expressed a point of view that “the relations between Lithuania and Russia, as well as
with Belarus would
depend on Russia itself”.
The
newly elected Seim will also have a group on relations with Belarus
Recently Lithuania played an
important role in negotiations between Minsk and Brussels. Moreover,
Petras Vaitsiakunas, prior to his appointment as the Foreign Minister of
Lithuania in 2006, was a Lithuanian Ambassador to Belarus and he is well aware
of the situation in the country. He always stood for a dialogue between Vilnius and Minsk, between Belarus and the
European Union.
In the meantime
the Head of another Parliamentary Group on relations with Belarus, Vatslav
Stankevich, was not balloting for the new Parliament. With regard to the
victory of the conservatives and to the relations with Belarus he said the
following:
“They are
one of the political forces that have a lot of experience in political affairs.
I am convinced there will be no cardinal changes due to the fact that all, the conservatives,
the social democrats as well as representatives of other political parties have
a common strategic goal: it is very important for us to protect Belarus as an independent
country, a self-sustained country with its own language and culture”.
With regard to
the issue of creation of a special Parliamentary Group on relations with Belarus
in the new Seim of Lithuania, the vice-Chairman of the “Patriotic Union” Rasa Jukniavichene
said, that “indeed, that will be the case. I even believe that it will be more active
and more powerful, due to the fact that our party won the majority of seats in the
Parliament, and we were always interested in the democratic forces of Belarus and in the improvement
of the relations with this country”.
Anatoly Liabedzka: «It will be harder for
Lukashenko to communicate with the Lithuanian authorities now»
What is the view
of the Belarusian politicians with regard to the relations between Lithuania and Belarus? The
Chairman of the United Civic Party, Anatoly Liabedzka, said the following. “It will
be harder for Lukashenko to communicate with the Lithuanian authorities now due
to the fact that right-centrist coalition is being formed now, which means the
authorities would have to deal with Kubilius, Landsbergis and other Lithuanian
politicians. They are more harsh and more pragmatic. In addition to that, one
should not think that there will be principal changes, due to the fact that Lithuania is a member of the European Union and its
external policy becomes more collective and collegial. Moreover, there were two
Working Groups on relations with Belarus in the Lithuanian Seim. One of them was
headed by Vatslav Stankevich and it was more considerate, while the second one,
headed by Rasa Juknavichene, comprised of conservatives, who were harsher and
more principal”.
The First Secretary of the Belarusian Party
of Communists, Sergey Kaliakin also believes that there will be no cardinal
changes, “in case something will change, those would be only partial changes. In
general, Lithuania will be abiding to the rules existing in the
European Union. Therefore one should not expect revolutionary changes. Regarding
the overall position of the Lithuanian government and the position of the
country, my opinion is that the policy will be implemented in the frameworks
existing in the European Union”.
