While the heads of the opposition parliamentary parties are ironing their suits and preparing for their meeting with President Gitanas Nausėda, the ruling parties shrug their shoulders. Counting down the days until the parliamentary elections, the Head of state has announced that he will meet with the leaders of all parliamentary parties, Agnė Černiauskaitė states in Lrytas.lt But will he meet them all?
At the end of last week, the Presidency announced that a couple of weeks before the first round of the Seimas elections, the President will invite the leaders of the parliamentary parties to meetings to discuss the issue. These meetings started Monday with the Social Democrats’ President, Vilija Blinkevičiūtė.
If the President’s decision to meet only with the leaders of some of the political forces taking part in the elections on the eve of the polls is a bit unusual, as this has not been done before, the choice to invite Ms Blinkevičiūtė in the first place probably came as little surprise to anyone.
Blinkevičiūtė and Nausėda had not hidden their warm feelings toward each other since the presidential election campaign when the Social Democrats decided not to run their own candidate and to support the current Head of State. Lately, only compliments have been flying from the President towards Blinkevičiūtė, who is expected to take up the position of Prime Minister in the event of victory in the elections.
After a meeting with Nausėda on Monday, Blinkevičiūtė rejoiced that the Head of State had wished her party to do as well as possible in the Seimas elections and to win as many mandates as possible.
This week, the President will also meet with the Chairman of the Democrats, Saulius Skvernelis, and the leader of the Peasants, Ramūnas Karbauskis. The latter wondered why the President’s Office was now saying that meetings would be held with all parliamentary parties when he was told otherwise.
Who was invited?
The President’s Office announced last Friday that Nausėda would meet with the leaders of parliamentary parties just before the Seimas elections. It was immediately informed that the first in line was the Chair of the Social Democrats, Blinkevičiūtė.
“With the meeting with the Chairwoman of the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party, Blinkevičiūtė, the President starts a cycle of meetings with the leaders of parliamentary parties on the eve of the Seimas elections,” Ridas Jasiulionis, the Adviser to the President, commented to Elta.
According to Lrytas, Karbauskis will travel to the Presidential Palace on Wednesday to talk to the President about the upcoming parliamentary elections, and Skvernelis will be there on Thursday.
No other parliamentary parties have yet received an invitation to talk to the President. This means he has decided to discuss electoral issues only with the parliamentary opposition parties, at least for now.
Moreover, Frederikas Jansonas, the President’s Chief Advisor, told Žinių Radijas on Tuesday that it is not yet clear whether the Conservatives, who have not shied away from conflicts with the Presidency in the last term, will even receive such an invitation from the President.
According to Karbauskis, the representatives of the Presidential Office who invited him to the meeting had indicated that Nausėda would only talk to four political forces – the Peasants, the Social Democrats, the Democrats and the Liberal Movement.
The first three parties in the opposition are likely to be the most realistic candidates for forming a governing majority, as is the Liberal Movement, led by Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen, which has recently been added to the current ruling coalition.
According to talk behind the scenes, the Liberals’ support may be needed to avoid Remigijus Žemaitaitis or if Skvernelis and Karbauskis cannot be persuaded to work together. And the Liberals themselves are increasingly open about the possibility of working in a centre-left coalition.
“I have information that not everyone is invited. I think that not all the parliamentary parties will be invited, which is why I was a bit surprised when it was said that all the parliamentary parties would be invited. That is not what I was told.
I was told by name that it was the Social Democrats, the Peasants, the Liberal Movement and the Democrats. Neither the Freedom Party nor the Conservatives are there,” Karbauskis told the Lrytas portal.
The leader of the Peasants’ Party is not surprised that the President has chosen to talk to the political forces in the opposition.
“I am not surprised. The President is thinking about the future coalition and imagines that the Conservatives and the Freedom Party should not be in that coalition. Is that how people’s opinions are formed? I do not think that it determines their choice. This is simply a consultation about the attitude towards each other and programmatic issues,” Karbauskis explained.
When he meets with the Head of state on Wednesday, he intends to send a message – the Peasants cannot imagine working in a coalition with Skvernelis’ Democrats.
“I will make this clear to the President. It is hard to imagine because this party has no values and direction; these are people who are united only for power. If that party does not do well in the elections, it will probably end with this term of office. I will tell the President directly how I see it,” said Karbauskis.
Skvernelis will go to the President after he has spoken with Blinkevičiūtė and Karbauskis.
“We have arranged the timing so that not all the days suit me, as the President seems busy. I am glad we found a common time,” Skvernelis told the Lrytas portal.
When asked what exactly they would discuss, the Democratic leader shrugged his shoulders, adding that the main topic would probably be “political realities.”
And the fact that Nausėda only meets with the leaders of certain parties participating in the elections does not strike him as a strange decision either.
“No, it does not. The President is doing the right thing. It seems that the puzzle is such that he will have to take the initiative and actively build a stable Government and a ruling majority. The President is doing the right thing”, Skvernelis praised.
It is true that the Lithuanian Regions Party, which also supported Nausėda in the presidential elections, is also considered a parliamentary opposition party. Still, its Chairman, Jonas Pinskus, said he had not yet received any invitation from the President’s Office.
The ruling party did not receive an invitation
What is the situation among the ruling party? None of the three coalition partners has been invited to the Presidential Palace yet, but Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen, the Chair of the Liberal Movement, thinks she will be.
“No, I haven’t received one yet. I understand that I will. But it seems that the President has started to move from left to right, which will probably take some time,” said Ms Čmilytė-Nielsen.
She questioned whether such meetings on the eve of elections make sense.
“Of course, if I receive such an invitation, I will consider it. But right now, it seems to be more demonstrative than meaningful. After all, the first round of the elections is less than two weeks away, and now any pre-empting of events is hardly very meaningful”, the leader of the Liberal Movement stressed.
The Chair of the Freedom Party, Aušrinė Armonaitė, did not hear from the President about the meeting. If invited, she will go for a chat.
“Not yet, but we are in contact with the President and the Presidential Office; maybe we will,” Armonaitė told the Lrytas portal.
The invitation to meet has not reached the leader of the Conservatives, Gabrielius Landsbergis, either.
He is currently away, but he commented to Elta that the President’s support for the Social Democrats is welcome, as it strengthens the classical political forces and helps protect the country from radicals.
“At the moment, with the latest sociological research, we see that there is a danger of an even greater rise of the political force of Žemaitaitis, so we agree with the viewpoint that the Social Democrats need additional support. Therefore, we also understand the President’s steps in this direction and welcome his statement that Žemaitaitis has no place in the Government,” said Landsbergis.
However, according to the Conservative leader, Nausėda, “having said A, should say B”. Landsbergis said that the Presidency could make efforts to keep anti-Semitic parties out of not only the Government but also the coalition.
For his part, the Conservative Matas Maldeikis is convinced that the President wants to send a message to the electorate to vote for the Social Democrats and that he is interfering in the electoral process, which he should not do.
“What I see is simply the formation of a governing majority and sending a signal to the electorate – vote for the Social Democrats, the coalition I have been forming for a long time. We will see in the next meetings how much of this is really about all the parliamentary parties and the Social Democrats,” Maldeikis told the Lrytas portal.
He believes that the High Electoral Commission should be interested in this situation.
Lrytas has also contacted the President’s Office for a comment on the meetings with parliamentary parties but has not yet received a reply. We will add to the publication once we receive a comment.
The first round of the Seimas elections will take place on 13 October.
Be the first to comment