Commenting on the stand-off between the speaker of the Lithuanian parliament and the ruling party, former president Dalia Grybauskaitė says it reminds her of “a fiesta of political pettiness”.
She also believes that Seimas Speaker Viktoras Pranckietis has been pressured to resign because he did not demonstrate enough loyalty to the ruling party, the Farmers and Greens Union, and its leader.
“Looking from the outside, one can see elements of revenge for [a lack of] political loyalty,” Grybauskaitė said in an interview to LRT RADIO on Wednesday.
“There are not and will not be any concrete accusations against him [Pranckietis]; he is a decent person. Looking from the outside, we see a fiesta of political pettiness in the Seimas,” she added.
According to the former president, Pranckietis has to decide himself how involved he wants to be “in that political pettiness”.
Since the Farmers and Greens Union signed signed a new coalition agreement in July, the party's leader Ramūnas Karbauskis has repeatedly called on Viktoras Pranckietis to step down as the speaker of the Seimas so that the Social Democratic Labour Party's candidate could take up the post.
However, Pranckietis, who left the Farmers and Greens Union last month, has insisted he will not resign unless the parliament votes to remove him from the post.
The Farmers and Greens have said they will bring a no-confidence motion, but have not done so yet.
