VILNIUS - Lithuania's parliament on June 5 made a first step towards the direct election of mayors, an issue that has been debated in the country for almost a decade. Seventy-two lawmakers in the 141-member parliament voted in support of amendments to the constitution that would ensure that mayors in each of Lithuania's 60 municipalities are elected by the direct vote of residents.
But Lithuania is still a long way from making direct municipal elections a reality, as Lithuanian legislation provides that the constitution can only be changed if two thirds (94) of the lawmakers support the amendments in two different votes, which are separated by a period of no less than three months.
And it's not only the number of votes that supporters of the change need to think about. Politicians also need to agree on how much power these directly elected mayors would have.
"Half of the parliament want the mayor to be strong, another half would like to see him weaker," said Algis Caplikas, an MP from the Liberal Center Party group and one of the main supporters of the amendments.
"But I believe that the powers of the mayor might be discussed later in laws, which would follow the amendments. What's more important is to agree on the main principle 's that mayors are elected directly," Caplikas said.
But Rimantas Smetona, a member of the Order and Justice Party, disagreed.
"It is not enough to say that the mayor is elected directly. It is strange to see such an undefined proposal; it looks like self-deception. I believe that it should be defined in the constitution whether a mayor will be the real master in the municipality or just a straw leader," Smetona said.
Jurgis Razma, a member of the Conservative Party, was also cautious about directly elected mayors. During the parliamentary debate he warned that directly elected mayors would be less resistant to corruption as they would not be controlled by their parties as mayors are now.
"It would then be very difficult to remove the corrupt mayor from his position," Razma said.
But Caplikas' reply to the warning was very simple: "If a mayor is corrupt it is not the question of his removal but more of putting him in prison."
One member of Parliament, who did not want to be named, said that Lithuania is not mature enough for directly elected mayors.
"Remember the recent municipal elections, when the impeached president Rolandas Paksas concentrated all his efforts and money on Vilnius and won there. If the mayors were elected directly he would most likely be the capital's mayor today," the lawmaker told The Baltic Times.
"And Paksas isn't the only example. The former leader of the Labour Party, who is currently hiding from Lithuanian prosecutors in Moscow, ...is another," he added, explaining that Viktor Uspaskich, who is wanted on suspicion of tax fraud, could win a mayoral post in his home city of Kedainiai. "There are many municipalities where local businessmen would manage to 'buy' themselves mayors and then we have many small duchies with local landlords, who serve money [interests] but not local communities. We must first nurture civic society and only then offer it direct mayoral elections."
Mayors in Lithuania are currently elected by the city council members, who are in turn elected for four year terms from party lists. In order to have members in a city council a party must get no less than 4 percent of votes from residents of the municipality.
