After coming on top in Lithuania’s parliamentary election in October, the leader of the winning Social Democrats, Vilija Blinkevičiūtė, announced she would not be the country’s prime minister. Instead, the party’s leadership decided that Gintautas Paluckas would step in.
Paluckas, aged 45, studied English in London, graduated from the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics at Vilnius University in 2003 and the School of International Business in 2004, and later studied at the Faculty of Law at Vilnius University.
From 2005, Paluckas was an assistant to MEP Justas Paleckis, between 2007 and 2009 he was the director of Vilnius Municipality Administration. He also was the deputy mayor of Vilnius between 2015 and 2019 and a member of the parliament from 2020.
Crucially, he was the chairman of the Social Democratic Party (LSDP) between 2017 and 2021. It was a low point for the party – having lost the 2016 elections, it was a junior partner in a ruling coalition led by the Farmers and Greens Union but, under Paluckas’ leadership, decided to leave. This led to a split in the party, as some of its MPs and cabinet members were reluctant to go into opposition.
The move still didn’t help the Social Democrats – they once again underperformed in the 2020 general elections. Paluckas himself lost in his single-member constituency, only getting an MP seat via the party list. He decided not to seek leadership re-election in 2021 when MEP Blinkevičiūtė took over the party’s reins. Many attribute the LSDP triumph this year to her personal popularity.
Paluckas also has a criminal record. In 2012, he was found by the Supreme Court of Lithuania guilty of abuse of office in an opaque public procurement tender while he was working as the director of the Vilnius City Municipality administration.
The court found that, when procuring rodent extermination services, the municipality was paying more for the service than some bidders had offered. Paluckas said that this was an error and claimed to take full responsibility.
Premiership could be a challenge?
Algirdas Butkevičius, a former Social Democrat who was one of the members who left the party when it quit the ruling coalition in 2017, is critical of Paluckas and thinks that putting him forward for the premiership is deceiving voters who thought they were voting for Blinkevičiūtė.
According to Butkevičius, Paluckas came to the Social Democratic Party as a former member of the Young Conservatives, the youth branch of the outgoing Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats (TS-LKD) party. He worked closely with former Social Democrat leader Gediminas Kirkilas and was a promising, energetic and active politician who was not afraid to speak his mind, Butkevičius said.
“It was possible to talk and discuss things with him, Paluckas had realistic views,” he added.
However, Butkevičius believes that Paluckas' leadership of the party failed to live up to expectations, and alienated some veteran members, including Butkevičius himself.
“Paluckas showed his weakness as party chairman,” Butkevičius said. “He began to divide members into those who were his people and those who were not” and voted for his rival in the party leadership elections.
“This is a very bad quality in a leader, he has to understand that he has to forget his grievances,” Butkevičius added.
This can affect his leadership if he becomes the prime minister.
“If he realises that he should not be afraid to have strong people around him and to value teamwork, it will be okay,” Butkevičius said, adding that Paluckas has never held the position of a minister, which is why being the prime minister could be a challenge.
No instincts as a politician?
Vytautas Dumbliauskas, a lecturer at Mykolas Romeris University (MRU) and a political scientist, thinks that Paluckas does not have the charisma needed to be a successful politician.
In the end, it was Blinkevičiūtė who pulled the party back from the brink, according to the political scientists.
“Paluckas’ leadership raises questions,” he added.
However, the politician is hard-working, which may be a good trait to become a prime minister, according to Dumbliauskas.
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