Gabrielius Landsbergis, the leader of the conservative Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats (TS-LKD) and foreign minister, says he is convening the party’s leadership on Friday to discuss government resignation amid an expenses scandal that has touched several conservative ministers.
The possibility of an early election is also on the agenda, he said.
“At the presidium we will decide [...] on our common position. I think we need to decide both on the resignation of the government and on early parliamentary elections,” Landsbergis told a press conference on Friday morning.
“There could be such a decision. I don’t rule out any decision,” the conservative leader said when asked whether the entire cabinet of Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė could resign.
The other two coalition partners – the liberal Freedom Party and the Liberal Movement – will be consulted after the TS-LKD meeting, Landsbergis added.
There have been calls for the resignation of the conservative Education Minister Jurgita Šiugždinienė after her expense reports as Kaunas City Council member raised suspicions of abuse. Šiugždinienė has insisted she did nothing wrong and Prime Minister Šimonytė has reiterated her confidence in the education minister several times.
However, Šiugždinienė said on Thursday she handed in her resignation, although the prime minister has yet to accept it.
Further reading
As a member of the Kaunas City Council in 2019-2020, Šiugždinienė claimed expense reimbursements worth 13,800 euros. She did not, however, submit any receipts, saying this was not required by the rules.
Two more ministers, the liberal culture minister Simonas Kairys and the conservative finance minister Gintarė Skaistė, have also had to answer questions about their expenses as former Kaunas Council members.
Commenting on the scandal, Landsbergis said the problem of opaque expense reimbursement rules in local government was systemic and “certainly not linked to just one person, who happens to be the one who is the most talked about in the media and in society”.
“I am strongly opposed to mob justice and I try to take a systemic approach to the problems that exist,” he said. “If these are systemic problems, I’d like to raise a fundamental question: can the Lithuanian political system withstand such a high standard of transparency and accountability? And I doubt it,” Landsbergis said.
In the situation, there might be a need to “reboot the system” with a fresh election, he added.
Further reading
Early elections not a given
Parliament Speaker Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen, the leader of the Liberal Movement, has refused to comment on Landsbergis’ statements.
“It’s a rational proposal as the issue, as we see, is important and needs to be discussed, and I would not like to comment on possible solutions before the meeting,” Čmilytė-Nielsen, who is currently in Tallinn, told BNS via her spokesperson.
Eugenijus Gentvilas, the elder of the Liberal Movement’s political group in the parliament, Seimas, says the government’s resignation would not necessarily mean early general elections.
“The government’s resignation does not necessarily mean early Seimas elections. The Seimas can decide: OK, this government has demonstrated its standard and is resigning, then let’s form a new government,” Gentvilas told BNS.
Gentvilas believes the coalition partners should have discussed this issue from the very first day, as soon as the news about the possible non-transparent use of money by the education minister emerged. However, it could not be done as Landsbergis was in Japan at the time and the Seimas speaker was in Rome, and she’s now in Estonia.
Economy Minister Aušrinė Armonaitė, who leads the Freedom Party, another coalition partner, says “some kind of a reset could happen”.
“I can’t really comment on early elections yet. We have agreed to talk in the near future,” Armonaitė told BNS. “The situation is very serious. There’s a confidence crisis within the political system, and trust in democracy in general and political parties has fallen, especially among young people. I have no doubt that we need to go back to our parties, first of all, and discuss things with the community and then within the coalition, and talk about how we can get out of the situation. I would like to refrain from any detailed comments for the time being,” Armonaitė said.
Vytautas Mitalas, the elder of the Freedom Party political group in the Seimas, says the resignation of several ministers would not mean the collapse of the entire government.
“Forgive me, please, for downplaying the drama in this situation, but the replacement of one, two or even three ministers, in theory, […] does not necessarily mean the collapse of the whole government, its resignation or early elections. Such a situation may be provoked more by the inability to work together, the failure to fulfil election promises and the commitments enshrined in the coalition agreement, but not by the change of one, two or three ministers,” Mitalas told BNS on Friday.
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