VILNIUS - The agonizingly slow impeachment process against President Rolandas Paksas came one step closer to its denouement on Feb. 18, when a special panel upheld all six indictments against the president.
Then, on Feb. 20, the Seimas (Lithuania's parliament) voted 62 - 11, with three abstentions, in favor of beginning formal impeachment proceedings.
Many analysts considered the vote, which involved only 76 of Parliament's 137 members, as indicative of how the final ballot to oust Paksas - which would require 85 votes - could pan out.
News of the panel's decision was announced by Julius Sabatauskas, deputy chairman of the commission, after a marathon nine-hour meeting. While the panel, composed of judges and lawmakers, failed to uphold the validity of all the evidence related to the accusations, it approved by majority vote the six charges against the president - including endangering national security, leaking state secrets and failure to prevent abuse of power among advisers.
There had been earlier speculation that the panel would uphold only three of the six accusations. Regardless, a successful vote in the Seimas on any one of the six charges would strip Paksas of his office.
Lawmakers further approved a motion to ask the Constitutional Court to issue its opinion on whether the president violated his oath of office, a necessary measure in the impeachment process.
After a long period of silence, the president made his first public statement on the vote at a Feb. 24 press conference.
Showing no sign of contrition, Paksas went on the offensive, calling for impeachment procedures to be initiated against Parliamentary Chairman Artu-ras Paulauskas on charges of illegally leaking classified information.
"Paulauskas has defamed the name of the Seimas, which is a violation of his oath of office," said the president.
Paksas' allegations refer back to late October, when State Security Department chief Mecys Laurinkus, whom the president was attempting to sack, presented Paulauskas with a dossier of information collected in his investigation of Paksas and his advisers that eventually led to the current scandal.
Soon after the meeting, the parliamentary chairman shared the materials with parliamentary leaders, a move that the president claims was illegal.
Framing his accusations in the context of a larger crusade against corruption, Paksas said that the country's political system as a whole must be "cleaned up," and he pledged to "reveal ...the names of the initiators of evil deeds."
In a response press conference hours later, Paulauskas flatly denied the charges.
"This is simply an unsuccessful counter-maneuver, and nothing more," Parliamentary Vice-Chairman Vytenis Andriukaitis told The Baltic Times. "The entire impeachment procedure has been followed in a legal manner. There's nothing to challenge about the way it has been handled."
Still, lawmakers loyal to the embattled president allege that ulterior motives have prompted Paulauskas to steamroll impeachment through the Seimas.
"The constitution says that if Paksas is impeached Paulauskas temporarily becomes president, so he obviously has a lot to gain," said MP Algirdas Matulevicius, a member of Paksas' Liberal Democratic party.
"I certainly wouldn't say that this procedure has followed the constitution and the laws of Lithuania. Even from the very beginning Paulauskas didn't have the right to stop the process of replacing Laurinkus, so [Laurinkus] has been working illegally all this time," Matulevicius said.
Nonetheless, Paulauskas' prompt response to Paksas' allegations and his comment to national television on Feb. 23 that he would not move his office into the Presidential Palace if he were to assume temporary control of the executive have convinced some in the Vilnius elite of the genuineness of his intentions.
Regardless of allegiances, no one in the capital is expecting a quick resolution to the political crisis facing Lithuania, which Constitutional Court Chairman Egidijus Kuris recently called "without precedent in Europe."
After the court's review of the impeachment documents, which is expected to take three to four weeks, a potentially protracted trial against the president will begin in the Seimas.
"It's difficult to give a prognosis, but the earliest a vote could occur would be April," said Andriukaitis.
This could leave Lithuania without a president elected by the people on May 1, when the country joins the European Union.
