VILNIUS 's Opposition leader Andrius Kublius met with President Valdas Adamkus on Wednesday as the head of state searches for a solution to the political confrontation that has thwarted the government's work.
Adamkus met Kubilius after having sat down with Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas and Parliamentary Chairman Arturas Paulauskas on Tuesday.
Kubilius, who heads the right-wing Homeland Union (Conservatives), reiterated his call for the establishment of an ad hoc commission that will look into Brazauskas' family business.
Kubilius succeeded last week in convincing the necessary number of MPs to support the initiative, only to have pro-government lawmakers quash the motion two days later.
"My only proposal for the president in this situation is to try to persuade Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas to admit one of the biggest mistakes by him and the ruling coalition 's the blocking of the establishment of a parliamentary commission 's and achieve that the prime minister asks to set up such a commission himself," Kubilius was quoted by Baltic News Service as saying.
Adamkus is meeting with leading politicians as part of his search for a way out of the political crisis. Brazauskas has threatened to resign if forced to testify before a commission, while the opposition and many observers insist that the public has the right to know more about deals involving the prime minister's wife, who partly owns the Crowne Plaza Hotel.
Opposition lawmakers fear that Kristina Brazauskiene's relations with a retail gas trader may have undue influence on the government's ongoing efforts to find a strategic investor for Mazeikiu Nafta, the country's largest enterprise and the Baltics' only oil refinery.
Kubilius, a former prime minister, said that if Brazauskas resigned the current ruling coalition 's the Social Democrats, the Social Liberals, the Labor Party and the Union of Farmers/New Democrats 's would like stay in power.
