Paulauskas doubts Social Liberal ministers will stay on

Apr 20, 2006
From wire reports

VILNIUS - Social Liberal leader and MP Arturas Paulauskas expressed doubt that the ruling coalition would allow New Union (Social Liberals) ministers to continue their positions, after the party left the coalition earlier this week.

“I think that coalition partners will soon divide those seats among themselves, and I cannot imagine that the remaining three coalition partners would leave our ministers. It would be illogical and unaccountable,” Paulauskas told the Baltic News Service.
Therefore, the party is not dramatizing Social Security and Labor Minister Vilija Blinkeviciute’s decision to withdraw her resignation, he added.

Paulauskas described Blinkeviciute’s choice as “humane,” although he added that, “from the political point of view, these moves are wrong.” Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas said Blinkeviciute’s future was not yet clear. “I can hardly give you a definite answer about Blinkeviciute’s situation. All I can say is that she is a good minister, she works very well and has worked in the system for many years,” Brazauskas, who leads the ruling Social Democratic Party, told Ziniu Radijas news radio.

The PM later told reporters that Blinkeviciute could maintain her post as minister “under certain conditions and circumstances.”
According to unofficial information, Blinkeviciute was pressured to withdraw from the Social Liberal party and join the Social Democratic Party. Blinkeviciute, a member of the Social Liberals, tendered her resignation to the prime minister last week, but then withdrew it on April 19.

Upon leaving the ruling coalition, the Social Liberals said they were recalling their two ministers from the government. The move came after Parliament removed their leader, Paulauskas, from the post of parliamentary chairman.

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