Maybe the offer of Viktoras Pranckietis and a few traditional liberals to start considering early elections is not that bad, Mečys Laurinkus wrote in Lrytas.lt.
The idea that Parliamentary elections should be held in spring is not new, yet hardly achievable, since the ruling parties, whoever they would be, would have to sacrifice themselves and shorten their term in office.
Now, this possibility is more real and I have no doubt that to all the Lithuanian citizens it is clear that from this Parliament there will not be any grain. Only chaff. The budget might be approved against the will of the “Farmers” and then we will get confusion before the elections.
It is not hard to guess that a hodgepodge of no better quality will emerge after the elections as well, but that is the destiny of our political life, we will have to adjust. The two-party system finally moves to museums even in big countries. Even more so in small ones.
Three roles for the conservatives
In the next parliamentary elections, there will be three rolls of “conservative” parties, two of liberal, two social democrats, the returning Labour Party, some formation from social media, one or another antique loser of Sąjūdis times. And all of this after pitiful words about work for the country, people, while taking revenge behind people’s backs and having backstage games and intrigues.
But maybe the things happening now will not be there anymore? Yes, they will. Because they were present all the time in independent Lithuanian politics. We only forget very fast. I do not want to name examples from pre-war Lithuania.
Were there no rather sharp enemies in the Sąjūdis initiative group, in the Sąjūdis Parliamentary board? May the ones, who forgot the media of those Sąjūdis times, raise their hands.
How about the speaker of the parliamentary election after March 11th? How about the tensions (an understatement) between the Parliament and its own delegated government which was led by K. Prunskienė? How about all the wars inside the parties (one of the fiercest was when G. Vagnorius lost the president’s trust), as well as between parties, when during the seemingly usual competition in the democratic world it is struck in a forbidden area. How about R. Paksas, who was appointed to be the prime minister by the conservatives and then – betrayed?
Here the words “et cetera, et cetera” truly fit. Then how is the current war in Parliament different? The only difference is that now there are more games of the procedure and not a sign of state-level concern.
Competition is good
There is one more difference. We used to educate ourselves: in a democratic political system competition and political fighting are natural and justified, but it has to be done in a civilised way. The old traditional democracies were held as examples, such as Great Britain, USA. Hence what is happening now in these countries? Almost a civil war.
Indeed, we are going hand in hand with chaos, which is growing all over the world. Chaos, in which it is impossible to predict neither small nor big events.
Before the re-voting regarding V. Pranckietis started, I thought that Karbauskis will demonstrate the “majority” in the Parliament. That was predicted by some publicly interviewed analysts as well. I was wrong. In order not to make a mistake one has to consider a possibility of betrayal.
Frankly speaking, R. Karbauskis was betrayed by his own kind.
Yet for people of traditional upbringing who still believe in the power of agreement, it feels bad to consider betrayals. Yet, it is a must.
There is another story we see in parallel, which is worldwide. The USA leaves their Kurdish allies, who are fighting with the so-called Islamic State, to face Turkey, which despises them, alone. Not because the Kurds started to behave badly or cheated on the USA. Everything is just business. They are not useful anymore, so they are not needed.
Strategic partnership with the USA
All countries which are considering themselves strategic partners of USA willingly or unwillingly start wondering if they can end up in the same situation and what are the guarantees that they will not. Does that mean that we should doubt the honesty of a strategic partnership? No, the Western world, culture and civilization were and remain priorities.
However, we should not forget that even within the borders of the EU we do not live in an altruistic world. Without getting into wide discussions or various geopolitical strategies, we can tell that we have problems with our closest neighbours, colleagues of fights for independence about, for example, energy. Though in our defence, for many years we all held the same position.
Only one thing is clear: the priority of any relationship between countries was, is and will be for a while national interests, while the strategic partnership will always be differentiated.
I mention this alphabetic truth not because of my need to preach, but because of more rounded considerations about which future politics should be chosen and how to organise domestic political life.
Under safety umbrella
That completely does not mean revising the road behind or starting from zero. From the conclusion of historical perspective, Lithuania is not in a crossfire of big countries’ interests anymore, where it should choose how to act on itself.
Membership in NATO and the EU unfolded a safety umbrella, gave wider possibilities for economical relationships than we would have had being alone.
Sadly, that is not eternal, even though a big part of Lithuanian citizens and among them, politicians understand future that way.
It is a misconception. NATO and the EU are political and public, economical projects, impressive non-daily constructs, which are still far from untouchable.
Both structures have a lot of internal problems, as well as external ones.
Pity that in the Lithuanian public space this is poorly reflected. It is necessary. Not only for provincial curiosity. We need to fight for the survival of NATO and the EU. And the further, the clearer one can see that this fight will be difficult. By the way, we need to prepare for a time when these organisations might disappear.
That is why Lithuania does not have the right to sag, be divided or fall into the chaos of internal fights and personal ambitions.
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