• November 6, 2012
  • 254

President is causing political crisis

Fot. ELTA

The leaders of the social-democratic party, the Labour Party, and the “Order and Justice” Party, Algirdas Butkevičius, Wiktor Uspaskich and Rolandas Paksas, have signed an agreement about creating a new ruling coalition. But the new government may never be created. President Dalia Grybauskaitė has sued the results of the election to The Constitutional Court (CC).

The General Committee of Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania (AWPL) has accepted the proposal of belonging to the coalition if it is given the same rights that “Order and Justice” will have.

By Saturday, The Constitutional Court was to answer president’s question whether the law was broken during the election. Until that time—as the spokesman of the president, Daiva Ulbinaitė, says— “the head of the state will not evaluate possibilities of creating any coalition.” The reasons of such an attitude of the president are numerous notifications about buying votes of the electorate during the first round of parliamentary election. Majority of the accusations is connected with the Labour Party. In one of the single-member constituencies the result of the election has been already cancelled.

As lawyers say, if the Constitutional Court decides that the Law about Parliamentary Election was broken and it had a major influence on the final result of the election, then the case will be directed to the Seym that is finishing its term of office. The old Seym also has the right to cancel the results in the multi-mandatory constituency (the parties’ lists, from which 70 MPs out of 141 are chosen to have seats in the Seym- red.) or in particular single-member constituencies. The old Seym is also able to determine “the real results of election using protocols of electoral commissions or other electoral documents.”

As the professor of law from the Vilnius University, Vytautas Nekrošius, told DELFI, it has been the first time in the history of Lithuania when there may appear a crisis of ruling the country. In this case, the whole authority may be taken by the president.

“If the CC decides to cancel the results in the multi-mandatory constituency, then new election will have to take place. In this case, the new Seym loses its powers. The old one, on the other hand, will be gone, because its term of office ends on 15th November. And if the situation is so, the president will have to take some functions on herself, just as she does it during the breaks of the parliamentary sessions.”

Lithuanian lawyers doubt whether the CC has the competence to objectively determine precisely how many votes were bought and what the percentage of them in the scale of all votes in the election is.

The leaders of the new ruling coalition (The Social Democratic Party, The Labour Party and the “Order and Justice” Party) are sure that the CC will not cancel the parliamentary election. They have signed a coalition agreement.

Social-democrats got 7 ministries: of foreign affairs, finance, defence, communication, economy, justice and health service. They also got the post of the head of government.

The Labour Party is to get five ministry posts: of agriculture, social service and labour, education, culture and energy.

For the “Order and Justice” Party there are two ministries: of environment and internal affairs.

A representative of the Labour Party will also have the position of the Speaker.

It is still unsure whether AWLP will enter the coalition.

The candidate for the position of PM, the leader of social-democrats Algirdas Butkevičius said during a press conference that “AWLP’s participation in the coalition is strategically important.” He believes that in the coalition AWPL would make it easier to improve Polish-Lithuanian relations.

“I think Poland is our strategic partner. AWLP’s participation in coalition is possible and it would make easier the solving of strategically energetic problems, which should be discussed with neighbouring countries, and it would make maintaining a certain attitude in European Union discussions easier, too.” The candidate for the PM said that after creating the new government, the first places he will visit will be Latvia and Poland.

The General Committee of AWLP decided to enter the new ruling coalition under the condition that it will have “equal rights” with the “Order and Justice” Party. AWLP got 8 seats and the “Order and Justice” Party—11. The Labour Party says it does not reject the possibility of giving up one ministry for AWLP. It is also possible that similar decision can be taken by the social-democrats.

Source:  http://kurierwilenski.lt/2012/11/06/prezydent-stwarza-kryzys-polityczny/

Tłumaczenie Emilia Zawieracz w ramach praktyk w Europejskiej Fundacji Praw Człowieka, www.efhr.eu. Translated by Emilia Zawieracz the framework of a traineeship programme of the European Foundation of Human Rights, www.efhr.eu.

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