Led by Remigijus Žemakaitis, the Nemunas Dawn (Nemuno Aušra) party could be a kingmaker in the formation of a ruling coalition. Even though the party leader’s previous anti-Semitic remarks risk doing reputational damage to Lithuania, other parties may find it impossible to form a ruling bloc without him.
The Social Democratic party, which won the elections, is now discussing a coalition with the Democratic Union “For Lithuania”. The Farmers and Greens Union (LVŽS) is also named as a potential partner, while the Liberal Movement and several individual politicians could also fall into the new ruling bloc.
Meanwhile, observers and politicians are trying to decipher the factors that led to the success of the Nemunas Dawn party, which is predominantly made up of various fringe politicians.
The renaissance of the party’s founder and leader, Žemataitis, began when the ruling conservatives, the Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats (TS-LKD), decided to hold impeachment proceedings over his anti-Semitic Facebook posts. This catalysed the politician: he declared himself a victim of cancel culture and left the parliament to create his own political party, the Nemunas Dawn.
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In September 2023, the ruling party collected signatures for the impeachment of Žemaitis, and in November 2023, the politician convened the party's founding congress.
The pace moved even quicker after that. Žemaitaitis took advantage of criticism from the Conservatives, which were themselves under fire for their past four years in government.
“We created him,” said a representative of the TS-LKD, who agreed to speak only on condition of anonymity.
According to the source, the party’s plan was bound to fail – it was based on finding a suitable opponent in the election campaign to mobilise the conservative electorate.
Previously, the looming threat of Russia was the conservatives’ go-to card.
“One of the party leaders said: we need to bring out the good-old weapon again, and he mentioned Russia. I was surprised because Russia is an actual threat, but it was being politicised,” the source said.
This time, the much-talked-about Žemaitaitis was used as the threat instead.
“Except that all this has been at the expense of the country's image. This was the tactic. Did it work? One could say that it has worked,” the conservatives’ source said, adding that the party was also trying to find signs of anti-Semitism in the president’s office.
Saulius Skvernelis, Lithuania’s former prime minister and head of the Democrats “For Lithuania” party, predicted Žemaitaitis’ rise a year ago.
“This hasty action by the ruling party is simply creating a new victim who will exploit this. The actions of the ruling party [the TS-LKD] may give birth to another radical party that will be brought to the Seimas,” he said in September 2023.
At the time, Skvernelis refused to support the impeachment of Žemaitaitis, arguing that it would give him a platform. As a pre-trial investigation into the anti-Semitic remarks was underway at the same time, there was little point in starting an impeachment process alongside it, he argued.
Speaking to LRT.lt, Skvernelis said the conservatives are responsible for the rise of this new populist party.
“Maybe they did not exactly give birth to it, but they have contributed strongly to the growth of the baby,” Skvernelis said. “First of all, by demonising them, by trying to create an enemy that would mobilise their voters and split the left-wing vote. They have done this successfully by promoting him wherever they can in all sorts of ways.”
In April, the Constitutional Court ruled that Žemaitaitis had violated the Constitution with his anti-Semitic statements, but he escaped impeachment by resigning from the Seimas. Later, the conservatives proposed creating a “cordon sanitaire” to keep what they called radical parties out of the Seimas.
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“Their interest is very simple: to get as many votes as possible out of the moderate centre-left, and then to strongly demonise Žemaitis and blackmail the other political forces into believing that it will be the end of the world if they go into coalition with him,” said Skvernelis.
According to Skvernelis, if the centre-left parties were to form a coalition with Žemaitis, it would lead to continuous scandals centred around the Nemunas Dawn party. Ultimately, this would weaken the ruling coalition.
Gintautas Paluckas, vice-chairman of the election-winning Social Democratic Party, claimed that the conservatives helped the ratings of Nemunas Dawn on purpose. According to him, this took away votes from centre-left parties, including the social democrats, and helped mobilise conservative voters.
Another part of the strategy was to offer the social democrats to cooperate, which would be seen negatively by its voters.
“From the very beginning, that plan was clear and distinct,” Paluckas said.
Ainė Ramonaitė, a professor at the Institute of International Relations and Political Science at Vilnius University, previously told LRT.lt that the conservatives were the most disliked party among the centre-left voters.
Former Seimas Speaker Arūnas Valinskas, who founded a short-lived party in 2008, said the impeachment process helped Žemaitaitis.
“When the impeachment was initiated against him in the Seimas, Žemaitaitis publicly said: 'Congratulations, it will add ten percent to our popularity’,” Valinskas told LRT.lt.
Being criticised by the conservatives often helps opposition parties, he added.
“When he was meeting people, Žemaitaitis used to emphasise that: 'these people you hate must be destroyed.’ I heard a recording where every fifth word was a swear word,” Valinskas said.
However, he dismissed claims that the conservatives helped the Nemunas Dawn emergence knowingly. Most likely, he said, they did not realise the consequences of their actions.
Meanwhile, Mažvydas Jastramskis, a lecturer at the Institute of International Relations and Political Science at Vilnius University, said Žemaitaitis was the symptom of broader factors.
“This is not just a conservative effort, he has received a lot of attention from the political elite and the public sphere in general,” said Jastramskis.
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