VILNIUS - After losing the deputy chairmanship of his Labor Party, Lithuanian Parliamentary Speaker Viktoras Muntianas, in an interview with Ziniu Radijas news radio on May 3 talked about starting a new party. "I think we should create a political party that would implement those objectives and ideas that existed during the establishment of the Labor Party," he said.
In the interview, Muntianas suggested that seven lawmakers who had left a meeting of the Labor Party on May 2 would help start the new party. The parliamentarians had complained about what they called the dictatorial actions made by their leader Viktor Uspaskich.
Muntianas had lost his position in the Labor Party during a party congress on April 29. At that meeting, Uspaskich got party members to strengthen his position within his party. Uspaskich was unconcerned about the departure of the seven parliamentarians. "It is their decision, their will," he told BNS on May 2. "There is no need to dramatize the matter, as the names (of those who left the faction) were known before, it was just a matter of time when it would happen."
Despite his current plans, Muntianas said he thought the current three-party ruling majority could continue to work. Muntianas was effectively echoing the words of Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas in a speech he made on May 2. "I think the coalition can work," Brazauskas said. "I see a considerable difference between the coalition in the parliament and the coalition in the government, as the governmental coalition works on absolutely different bases. We do not politicize, we have to tackle completely different issues. The current coalition is capable of working."
