VILNIUS - Vilnius Mayor Arturas Zuokas has seen better days. Over the past two weeks, the economy minister, a national business tycoon and his party comrades have relentlessly accused him of corruption during his term as chief of the Lithuanian capital.
The first scandal broke out last week between the mayor and the LNK TV station, which is owned by the MG Baltic concern. LNK ran a story about "unreported bookkeeping data" of Rubicon Group allegedly showing regular payments made to an unidentified person in the Vilnius city administration in exchange for favorable decisions.
LNK claimed the unnamed individual was paid more than 2 million euros or dollars over the course of two years and referred to as "the subscriber" in conversations between senior managers of the Rubicon Group.
LNK implied that this person could be Mayor Zuokas himself.
Rubicon representatives refused to comment on the report, while the mayor said it amounted to a libel campaign against him by MG Baltic's owners.
He added that the concern's president and sole owner, Darius Mockus, was doing his best to discredit him in the so-called "subscriber" scandal.
"I suppose that Mr. Mockus is not independent. He could have privatized certain sites in Lithuania in exchange for obligations to some political groups, and now he has to pay for that," Zuokas said.
Mockus struck back, accusing Zuokas of shortsightedness.
"There is no war, but perhaps the mayor of Vilnius cannot see anyone else but himself," Mockus said.
Not long after, the mayor declared the beginning of hostilities against the business tycoon, saying he would take the matter to court.
Meanwhile, backstage rumors in the Seimas (Lithuania's parliament) suggested that the scandalous material unveiled by LNK television could have been fabricated to divert attention away from Economy Minister Viktoras Uspaskich, the target of a major conflict-of-interest scandal. Zuokas is considered an initiator in the attack against Uspaskich.
For many indeed, the red herring theory sounds true, since MP Petras Baguska, a member of the Labor Party and head of the parliamentary anti-corruption commission, asked the Special Investigative Service and Prosecutor General to investigate the "unreported bookkeeping entries" of the Rubicon Group.
"We have asked the state institutions to discover the so called mysterious 'subscriber' and the facts related to his activities," Baguska said.
Yet Zuokas' woes do not end there. Uspaskich, whose alleged dealings while in office are currently under investigation by more than one parliamentary commission, has levelled similar accusations at his enemy. Uspaskich presented a package of documents that allegedly show Zuokas' protection of the company Eksimeta in state-level project negotiations with Russia.
According to the minister, Zuokas had received neither permission from the Vilnius municipality nor a governmental mandate to ask Moscow for a construction permit for Eksimeta.
"In this case, I'm not trying to defend myself because my hands haven't taken a single cent. With the documents that I have, I will prove that the accusations against me are just a 'child's game' when compared to this," said Uspaskich.
Zuokas did not deny having written such documents, although he called the information speculation and an intention to delude society.
"This is one of Uspaskich's regular attempts to speculate on various documents, extracting them from the context and by doing so trying to delude society to gain advantage for himself," the mayor said. "Uspaskich cannot tell the difference between defending the interests of Lithuania and protecting his own firm."
Political analysts said that Uspaskich was trying to divert media attention away from his scandal.
"In order to do that [divert media attention], it is needed to 'kill' one scandal with another one. The papers about Uspaskich's illegal actions came from the Vilnius municipality, so the best move was to hit back at the Vilnius mayor and leader of the [opposition] Liberal Centrists," commented media analyst Lina Peciuliene.
But the economy minister's attack was only one shot against Zuokas, who will have to deal not only with Uspaskich but his colleagues as well. Liberal Center members in the Seimas collected signatures on a petition asking Zuokas to step down as chairman of the party. On May 24, the party's council requested Zuokas to suspend his mandate as chairman until the corruption accusations generated by LNK were investigated.
In response, Zuokas suggested that his opponents withdraw from the Liberal Center Union.
"Those that mind only their own ratings should withdraw from the party," he said. "I have nothing in common with 'subscriptions' except those from telephone, electricity and gas."
While most of Parliament's political parties have kept quiet while watching Uspaskich and Zuokas duke it out, only the Conservatives dared utter a word.
"Competition between two businessmen, respectively taking the position of the capital mayor and economy minister, has become so savage that nearly all political parties, governmental institutions and the biggest part of society is forced to watch their verbal war," said political analyst Rytas Staselis. "Everybody has become captive to the battle."
Parliamentary opposition leader, Conservative (Homeland Union) Andrius Kubilius, said that the "subscription" affair is harming relations among Parliament's two opposition parties.
"It isn't good to comment on our partners' internal situation, but we certainly don't like the matters of their leader, Zuokas. This is an unclear situation, and the 'subscription' matter is starting to trouble the collaboration of our parties," Kubilius said.
The Liberal Centrists said they haven't noticed any estrangement with their partners and asked Kubilius not to intervene in their internal matters.
