The media has been reporting their fights for supremacy in the party
and state, but both Landsbergis and Vagnorius deny this rivalry and
have demonstrated unity in public. Only recently Landsbergis openly
accused Vagnorius of harming the party and state.
The Conservative Party won an astonishing victory in the
parliamentary elections of 1996. The Conservative Party and their
faithful allies, the Christian Democratic Party, gained an absolute
majority of seats. Landsbergis became the parliamentary chairman,
Vagnorius, prime minister.
However, Vagnorius resigned on May 3, after a feud with President
Valdas Adamkus. Now, while Landsbergis is still chairman of the
Parliament and the Conservative Party, Vagnorius is just an ordinary
Conservative MP.
Landsbergis launched an open attack on Vagnorius and his supporters
in the party during a speech at the meeting of leaders of the
regional branches of the Conservative Party on Jan. 7. Vagnorius did
not attend.
"The year 1999 will remain in memory as the year of the fall of
Vagnorius. It is a pity that it also means the fall of Lithuania,"
Landsbergis said.
He accused Vagnorius of poor administration of the state, especially
of a faulty evaluation of the influence of the 1998 Russian crisis on
the Lithuanian economy.
Landsbergis also accused Vagnorius of not being able to maintain good
relations with Adamkus who was supported by the Conservative Party
during the second round of presidential elections in January 1998.
"I admit my mistake in leaving to Vagnorius almost all internal
affairs of the state after the 1996 parliamentary elections,"
Landsbergis said.
He stressed that current Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius should be
"the uniting flag for the real work for the country". Landsbergis
said that Kubilius is "a modern Conservative" and ridiculed
Vagnorius' wing of the party as well as the Liberal Union led by
Rolandas Paksas who also call themselves "modern Conservatives".
Landsbergis urged Vagnorius to avoid both open and concealed
confrontation.
"Both Vagnorius, as prime minister on Jan. 13, and I had a common
goal - a European and a free Lithuanian state. I don't know what
happened to him," Landsbergis said.
Landsbergis and Vagnorius in the past were like brothers in arms.
Landsbergis was parliamentary chairman, or head of state, in
1990-1992. Parliament proclaimed the re-establishment of full
independence on March 11, 1990.
Vagnorius became prime minister on the night of Jan. 13, 1991, during
a Soviet army attack on Vilnius. In January 1991, Soviet paratroopers
occupied building after building in the Lithuanian capital, killing
14 and injuring hundreds of unarmed civilian defenders. The fearful
Prime Minister Albertas Simenas escaped and was hiding in the
Catholic priest's house near the Polish border. The Parliament, on
the initiative of Landsbergis, appointed Vagnorius to be the new
prime minister.
Vagnorius kept his post until 1992 and returned to this post in 1996
after the victory of the Conservatives in parliamentary elections.
Vagnorius has his supporters in the ranks of the Conservative Party,
although they make up a minority of party members. Nine Conservative
MPs, supporters of Vagnorius, signed a protest against Landsbergis'
speech. The 10th signature was that of MP Nijole Ozelyte who recently
left the Conservative faction. Her party membership is suspended, but
she has not been expelled from the party.
There are 63 Conservative MPs out of a total 139 MPs in the current
Parliament. Landsbergis is not a Conservative faction member because
parliamentary laws do not allow for the parliamentary chairman to be
a member of any faction.
Landsbergis always votes in the same way as the Conservative faction.
The Conservative's allies, the Christian Democratic faction, has 12
MPs - following the departure of four members to create a faction of
Modern Christian Democrats.
Ozelyte said that Landsbergis continues to search "for Communists and
KGB-ists everywhere". This shows that he has no fresh ideas, she said.
Ozelyte pointed to Kubilius as the proper replacement for Landsbergis
in the post of party chairman.
The statement of 10 Conservative anti-Landsbergists accused the party
leader of authoritarian rule in the party. They blamed post-Vagnorius
Conservative governments because of promises to the European Union to
close the Ignalina nuclear plant "without any guarantees from
Brussels of reimbursement". Ten Conservative dissidents praised the
achievements of the Vagnorius government in economics. Vagnorius
supporters also accused the current government of taking a liberal
stand towards the "shadow economy."
Representatives of the pro-Landsbergis majority among Conservatives
decisively rejected these accusations. Jurgis Razma, parliamentary
chancellor and Conservative MP, said those who speak about the
supposed liberalization of the shadow economy, "should substantiate
their statements of this nature with facts and legal acts."
Arvydas Vidziunas, parliamentary deputy chairman and Conservative MP,
said that there will be enough room inside the Conservative Party for
both, Landsbergists and the Vagnoriusites.
"They (the Vagnoriusites) can create their group inside the party,"
Vidziunas said.
Vagnorius kept his silence during recent passionate emotions among
the two Conservative party camps. He is somewhere abroad. No one from
the media could find out his whereabouts.
"Obviously, such confrontation within the ruling party deepens the
administration crisis," Ceslovas Jursenas, leader of opposition
Democratic Labor Party, said on Jan. 10.
Speaking on behalf of the LDDP faction of 13 MPs, Jursenas stated
that "there is no other democratic way out of this other than
immediate early elections".
Parliamentary elections are scheduled for fall and Jursenas'
statement makes no sense, said Aloyzas Sakalas, head of another left
opposition parliamentary faction, the Social Democrats (seven MPs).
"Premature elections can be announced only two months earlier than
scheduled because of legal procedures," Sakalas said.
The LDDP call for premature elections was echoed only by Kazys
Bobelis, the only MP of the tiny Christian Democratic Union.
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