Paksas kicked out of Liberal Union

VILNIUS - The Lithuanian Liberal Union expelled former Prime Minister Rolandas Paksas from the party by majority vote Jan. 12. Paksas had left the faction to found his own parliamentary group, in a move that angered fellow party members.

The motion to discontinue Paksas' membership in the Liberal Union, Lithuania's leading opposition party, was voted five against one, with one abstention. The board of the union's Antakalnis section, where he won his parliamentary mandate in the October 2000 election, has a total of nine members, but two were not present at the meeting.

Bronius Jonusas, head of the Antakalnis section, said Paksas' membership had been halted after the move to set up a separate parliamentary faction caused harm to the party and the implementation of the party's program.

Although he was invited alone, Paksas arrived at the Jan. 12 board meeting with a support team alongside members of his new faction, including long-time friends such as former Economy Minister Eugenijus Maldeikis, former Finance Minister Jonas Lionginas, former Environment Minister Henrikas Zukauskas, and TV celeb Dalia Kutraite-Giedraitiene.

Paksas and 10 other Liberal MPs left the parliamentary faction in December. They were given a deadline of Jan. 25 to return to the fold. But Paksas and nine supporters founded a new parliamentary faction on Jan. 12.

The remaining rebel, Juozas Raistenskis, joined the ruling faction of the Social Democratic coalition.

Paksas can still lodge a complaint against his expulsion to the Parliament's ethics commission, but he vowed he would not "play these games."

"The reason for my dismissal is that other people wanted to take lead in the party," he protested, adding that his intentions had not been to leave the Liberals.

However, the expulsion is convenient for Paksas, who is thought to want to take part in the presidential election planned for the end of 2002.

Although he stresses he has not yet made a final decision on whether to run, most Liberals favor Eugenijus Gentvilas, who defeated Paksas in a party leadership contest last year, as a presidential candidate.

Asked about any intentions to found a new party, Paksas replied it was still too early to talk about this. Paksas has previously hinted about such plans to the national press.

"My period of work with the Liberals was a bright one," Paksas told reporters after his dismissal. "Bright not only for the party, but also for the country's political life. It was also extremely good to me personally."

Paksas joined the Liberal Union toward the end of 1999, after leaving the post of prime minister, which he held as a member of the then ruling Conservative Party.

Gentvilas, who was also the Liberal Union's leader at the time, handed over the reigns to Paksas, a far more popular figure.

After the October 2000 parliamentary election, Paksas was appointed to head the New Policy coalition government formed with the New Union (Social Liberals) led by Arturas Paulauskas. He left the prime minister's post for the second time last June amid disagreements with his coalition partners, but his resignation failed to save the coalition.

Following the collapse of New Policy, the Liberals fell into opposition and blamed Paksas for their failure.

Paksas was forced to resign from the post of party chairman in September and lost the leadership contest to Gentvilas in October.

An editorial in the Jan. 14 issue of the Lietuvos Rytas daily claimed Paksas intends to retake the post of mayor of Vilnius, which he held in the late 1990s, if his presidential ambitions fail to bear fruit.