Municipal elections: Zuokas-led non-party coalition conquers Vilnius

VILNIUS - The Lithuanian municipal election of Feb. 27 was a jolly event, if listening to politicians of almost all colors, who claim victory in the elections. The Social Democrats are happy that they’ve gained the biggest number of seats throughout the 60 municipality councils of Lithuania. The Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats, which is a leading force in the ruling center-right coalition on the national level, express their joy that the electorate did not punish them severely for unpopular decisions during the economic crisis. They preserved their leading positions in Kaunas and Panevezys. Arturas Zuokas is happy that his non-party coalition of independent candidates can celebrate victory in Vilnius. The members of the Polish-Russian bloc, with the long official title of the Coalition of Lithuania’s Polish Electoral Action and the Russian Alliance “Bloc of Valdemar Tomasevski” (or Waldemar Tomaszewski, as this member of the European Parliament and leader of the Polish Electoral Action prefers to be called) express joy over their good result in Vilnius and in two rural municipalities close to the capital city. The Liberals traditionally celebrate victory in Klaipeda.

The Social Democrats received 328 seats, or every fifth seat throughout Lithuania. The Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats won 249 seats. Those two giants are followed by the Labor Party (165 seats), the Order and Justice Party (155 seats) and the Peasants’ Popular Union (147 seats). The latter traditionally is very popular in rural areas. The National Resurrection Party of Arunas Valinskas, which is one of the four parties in Lithuania’s ruling center-right coalition, received no seats at all. In the morning of Feb. 28, the winners held their press conferences in the premises of the Baltic News Service. Only Rolandas Paksas, leader of the Order and Justice Party, was so upset with his party’s bad results that he did not show up at the planned press conference, sending his party spokesman to speak there instead.

“I’m happy about the victory of the Social Democrats. We gained so many seats as never before. We are No. 1 in 18 municipalities and No. 2 in 16 municipalities,” Algirdas Butkevicius, chairman of the Social Democrat Party, said about his party’s victories in small towns. However, he said that he is not so happy about his party’s terrible defeat in Vilnius and Klaipeda. The Social Democrats’ result in Kaunas also was not good. They celebrated victory only in one of the five biggest Lithuanian cities – they won in Siauliai.

“We consider these municipal elections as our success story,” said Valentinas Stundys, deputy chairman of the Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats.
“There is no doubt that we will seek the post of Vilnius mayor,” Zuokas stated.
For this year’s campaign, all bans on political advertising were lifted, to the joy of advertising companies and PR agencies. Ads were on the streets, on TV and even in the sports arena: the Social Democrats sat like fans, with their big red banner urging to vote for them in Vilnius’ Siemens Arena, which now is usually full due to the Vilnius Lietuvos Rytas basketball club’s perfect chance to get into the Top 8 stage of the Euroleague. The Internet’s media pages were also overcrowded with advertisements: for example, Jeremy Irons, the English movie actor, gave a speech, recorded in New York, urging people to vote for Zuokas, Liberal Vilnius mayor of 2000-2007, who in 2011 was running as a non-party man with his non-party coalition in Vilnius.

Zuokas was No. 1 in giving concrete promises during the election campaign – these were not some vague statements about family values, as with the Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats. Zuokas promised 6,400 litas’ (1,855 euros) average salary by 2020 (this is the amount of the minimum wage in Luxembourg now). Zuokas also promised to initiate the re-creation of a national air carrier, calling it Air Vilnius in his Internet ads - probably there will never be enough flight destinations to and from Vilnius, although Ryanair, despite its current regional base in Kaunas, is also moving to Vilnius this year.

Zuokas’ coalition list was quite interesting: Ruta Vanagaite, organizer of Soviet-theme horror reality show entertainment in the Soviet-built nuclear bomb shelter near Vilnius, Saulius Paukstys, author of the idea to build monuments to Frank Zappa in Vilnius and Baltimore, and Zydrunas Savickas, winner of the 2009 and 2010 World’s Strongest Man, who got a very good evaluation from Arnold Schwarzenegger. Zuokas’ election campaign brochure showed photos of Zuokas as an injured young war journalist somewhere abroad in the south, and Zuokas, as Vilnius mayor, talking to the Dalai Lama.

Unfortunately, the parliament did not support President Dalia Grybauskaite’s proposition regarding elections of mayors directly by the electorate. Now the posts of mayors will be negotiated in the political bazaars in each municipal council, and the outcome will depend not so much on political color (for example, on the eve of the elections, Vilnius was ruled by the coalition of the Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats, Social Democrats and Liberals of two sorts with backing from tiny Lithuania’s Russian Union). The composition of the ruling coalition and election of mayor depends more on local friendships and business interests in each municipality, not on ideologies or programs. Ironically,  the only person of Lithuanian origin who competed for the post of mayor in a popular election last week was Gery Chico. This was in Chicago (despite his Hispanic surname, he emphasized his Lithuanian roots during his campaign) – on Feb. 22, he got 24 percent of the votes and finished second, suffering defeat to Rahm Emanuel, who until recently was the White House chief of staff.

Zuokas’ coalition received 12 seats in the 51-seat Vilnius council. The Polish-Russian nationalistic bloc got 11 seats. It was rather openly supported by Warsaw, which is very unusual in EU practice. According to Lithuania’s TV3, in the evening of Feb. 27, the Polish ambassador visited the headquarters of the Polish Electoral Action and eight Polish senators and MPs were also present in Vilnius. The Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats showed the best result in Vilnius among the national-scale political parties in Vilnius – it received 10 seats. The Labor Party, which was led by party leader Viktor Uspaskich, got eight seats. This is the first time when the Labor Party will have its members in the Vilnius council. Uspaskich said that he will resign from his seat in the European Parliament if he would get the post of Vilnius mayor.

However, the good results of Zuokas can force Uspaskich to stay in Brussels. Sarunas Birutis, former Labor Party member of the European Parliament, has the potential to be the main man of this political force in the Vilnius council. The Social Democrats got five seats in Vilnius. The Order and Justice Party also suffered a tremendous defeat in Vilnius, getting only five seats. It is interesting that both liberal parties, the Liberal Movement as well as the Liberal and Center Union (the latter has the bad media fame of shadowy ties with business) got no seats in Vilnius. The Liberal Movement was stating, from its huge posters, that they are “sane rightists.” However, the intellectual Vilnius residents probably decided that the members of this party are too much “rightists” and not “sane” enough, while the Zuokas coalition, or the Labor Party, are maybe more liberal than the Liberal Movement.

The situation in Kaunas is completely different. The Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats got 12 seats, leaving the Social Democrats with six seats and in second place. The non-party coalition of local business people, named United Kaunas, got five seats. The Lithuanian nationalistic Young Lithuania Party, which is somewhat similar to the Polish Electoral Action by the level of nationalism, showed good results only in Kaunas where they got four seats. The Order and Justice Party and the Labor Party also got four seats each in Kaunas. Both liberal parties, the Liberal Movement as well as the Liberal and Center Union, got three seats each in the Kaunas council.

The Liberal Movement won in Klaipeda, which is traditionally ruled by liberals. The Liberal Movement got seven seats. The Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats, the Russian Alliance, the Order and Justice Party, the Labor Party as well as the Liberal and Center Union got three seats each in Klaipeda. The Russian Union got two seats. It seems that the traditional local coalition of Liberals and the Russian Alliance will rule the port city.
Vilnius and Klaipeda are the only two big Lithuanian towns which have Slavic-origin minorities, and this is noticeable on the municipal election level. However, the municipal election showed that the majority of Lithuanian voters did not vote according to their ethnic origin – the Polish-Russian bloc got 15 percent of votes in Vilnius, although ethnic minorities, mostly Poles and Russians, make up 42 percent of its population.

Last year, an elderly Social Democrat MP, elected in the town of Marijampole, died. Therefore, the election of a new MP was held there together with the municipal elections. On Feb. 27, Social Democrat Albinas Mitrulevicius got 53 percent of votes in Marijampole, defeating Valdas Pileckas of the Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats, who got 42 percent of votes. This Social Democrat victory in Marijampole does not change significantly the landscape in the Lithuanian parliament, where the center-right coalition rules.