There are currently 20 former members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union working at the Lithuanian parliament Seimas, the news website 15min reported on Tuesday.
Moreover, only two of the former Communist Party members declared this connection in their candidate questionnaires before the parliamentary election.
There are former Communist Party members in almost all Seimas groups: five in the Democrats “For Lithuania” group, four each in the Homeland Union (TS-LKD), the Farmers and Greens Union, and the Social Democrats Party (LSDP) group, two in the Liberals Movement group, and one in the Freedom Party group.
The 15min journalists found the personal files of 12 current MPs among the documents of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Komsomol stored in the Lithuanian Special Archive.
Among those whose personal files were found in the archive are Vilija Targamadzė, Algirdas Stončaitis, Zigmantas Balčytis, and Laima Nagienė of the Democrats “For Lithuania” group, Liudas Jonaitis of the LSDP group, as well as Antanas Vinkus, Dainius Kepenis, Rimantė Šalaševičiūtė, and Algimantas Dumbrava of the Farmers and Greens Union.
The archive also contained files of representatives of the current ruling majority in the Seimas – Kęstutis Masiulis and Algis Strelčiūnas, members of the TS-LKD group, as well as Artūras Žukauskas, a member of the Freedom Party group.
The remaining members of the party were identified through interviews with MPs selected on the basis of age or work experience.
These are Antanas Čepononis and Kazys Starkevičius of TS-LKD, Rasa Budbergytė, Vidmantas Kanopa, and Algirdas Sysas of LSDP, Jonas Varkalys and Ričardas Juška of the Liberal Movement, and Algirdas Butkevičius of Democrats “For Lithuania”.
Šalaševičiūtė and Dumbrava are the two MPs who declared their former Communist Party membership in their candidate questionnaires.
Not ideological
Zigmantas Balčytis, one of those who has not declared his Communist Party membership, said that information about his former links is publicly available.
“Wikipedia, the Lithuanian Encyclopedia state it, and in some documents, I mentioned it, but maybe in some documents I didn’t mention it because I thought that whoever needed to know would know,” he said.
“At that time, the rules were such that if you wanted to apply for something, you had to belong to the Communist Party,” Balčytis explained.
According to the MP, however, he was not an ideological member of the Communist Party: “I worked in the economic field at the Komsomol centre committee, and at that time there were other colleagues who were ideological. I was only involved in the economic part.”
Artūras Žukauskas also claimed that he did not support Communist ideas and that he joined the Party for his scientific work.
“In the election questionnaire, as far as I remember, I stated it, and I don’t hide this fact. When I filled in the questionnaire, that’s what I said. I don’t know why it disappeared, it’s not my responsibility. I never hid it,” the MP said.
“At the time I joined the Communist Party, I was working at the Faculty of Physics at Vilnius University. The party organisation was there, the people were involved in it – the lecturers, professors. I had no doubts about their decency,” he added.
Social Democrat Rasa Budbergytė admitted that she did not indicate her membership of the Communist Party in her candidate questionnaire because there was no such requirement. However, she is not proud of this fact in her biography, she stressed.
“I am even ashamed of it. I didn’t indicate it because there was no such requirement. But it is stated in the documents for the authorisation to work with classified information. I think it would probably be meaningful if such a requirement to indicate one’s membership in all parties were included at the legislative level,” Budbergytė said.
Will be obliged?
Seimas Speaker Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen said on Tuesday that she would back the initiative to oblige politicians running in an election to declare their past Communist Party membership.
“As we can see, the norm is not working voluntarily, and some information is forgotten. It seems that this fact is important to the public, so the other way would be to oblige politicians, and then everything would be clearer,” she said.
According to her, the reports about 20 MPs having belonged to the Communist Party prove that “it is better for politicians to make public their biographical facts that may be important because they eventually come to light sooner or later“.
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, who leads the ruling TS-LKD, also said he did not know about some of his colleagues’ former membership of the Soviet Communist Party.
“That's news for me,” he told reporters at the Seimas on Tuesday.
To avoid such things in the future, he said, candidates should be obliged to disclose which party they belonged to.
“Probably the only conclusion is that such things must be declared to avoid such surprises for you, and for colleagues. [...] I hope that the rules will be the same for everyone and that everyone will disclose their former party membership,” Landsbergis said.
However, the TS-LKD leader said he has trust in his colleagues who were Communist Party members.
“I know the people, I trust them, and the voters know them quite well. It seems to me that voters are able to make up their minds and draw their own conclusions based on their existing work,” Landsbergis said.
Newsletter
Every Friday morning.
