Karbauskis suspects that Grybauskaitė had a plan to replace him: “I know how it was being done”

Lithuanian Farmer and Greens Union (LVŽS) leader Ramūnas Karbauskis suspects that with his party winning the elections, President Dalia Grybauskaitė had a plan to change everything and was interested in the snap Seimas election scenario, where one of the main roles would have gone to Gintautas Paluckas‘ Social Democrats. G. Paluckas himself describes this as Karbauskis’ fantasies.

R. Karbauskis posted on Facebook how the president apparently was “the first to publically show that the Seimas elections were won by the “wrong ones”.”

“I do not know, what the president’s scenario could have been, I only know what was being done. No effort was spared to cause snap elections. It was obvious,” R. Karbauskis said.

According to him, one of the main roles in this was meant for G. Paluckas’ Social Democrat Party, which was departing the coalition.

“The scenario was simple – leave the “Farmers” on their own. On Saturday, there was the Social Democrat statement that they are leaving the coalition and on Monday there was a statement from the president that the cabinet must review itself.

It is a simple scenario. The Seimas would not let itself go, but the Seimas is dismissed when the cabinet is not confirmed two times in a row. That is when the cabinet would fail to garner support. Failing to do so twice in a row, there would be snap elections,” R. Karbauskis stated.

He claims he is certain that this is the scenario that was pursued.

“G. Paluckas and the Social Democrat Party were convinced. There was only a single “but” in that scenario, the president did not know when she made the statement that the Social Democrats broke apart. If the group had not broken apart, everything would have proceeded according to this scenario,” R. Karbauskis said.

In his opinion, there were other efforts to harm them.

“Allt he other attempts were less impressive – trying to cause friction between me and Saulius Skvernelis, trying to break apart the group, it is being done all the time without stop, seeking the same goal,” R. Karbauskis said.

In his opinion, the scenario began when he was declared a KGB agent according to “a supposedly existing Ukrainian report.”

“Then it was decided that the (Conservatives) will not enter the coalition in any case because it is not worth it. Then you have to explain to your voters, why you do not go to the coalition and it is so easy to explain to Conservative voters “how could we go along with KGBists?” The explanation was there already he second day after the elections. I believe that they arranged their tasks overnight and one day,” R. Karbauskis said.

According to him, it was believed that there was still belief that everything will fall apart soon.

“All these scenarios aimed at things falling apart as soon as possible,” R. Karbauskis said.

G. Paluckas describes such thoughts as fantasies

Lithuanian Social Democrat Party chairman Gintautas Paluckas laughed at hearing R. Karbauskis’ ideas about the plan he supposedly participated in and reminded, why his party left the coalition.

“Just look at the governments work results over a year and a half – risen poverty, risen income inequality. Despite this, the prime minister and Mr. Karbauskis himself are very keen on shedding these “achievements”, but these are the results of this government’s work. We clearly stated that their policies are not leftist and not for us,” G. Paluckas said.

The Social Democrat leader was uninclined to take R. Karbauskis’ thoughts about a cunning plan made behind closed doors over causing snap elections seriously.

“How can I evaluate this? Just what sort of things do people come up with out of idleness? Perhaps he has a rich fantasy, political tension leads to such odd images appearing in one’s mind. I struggle to explain such conspiracy theory meanderings. I believe that they are due to the coming presidential elections. Mr. Karbauskis is keen on challenging our president,” G. Paluckas said.

According to him, the Social Democrats never had any intentions or even discussion on snap elections.

“Quite the contrary, when departing the coalition, we spoke on how we could support decisions we see as correct and that we could support them under a minority government. We certainly did not seek a cabinet review,” G. Paluckas said.