President Gitanas Nausėda has rejected two proposed Cabinet nominees and asked Prime Minister-designate Inga Ruginienė to submit new candidates for the posts of environment and energy minister, the presidential office said Monday.
Nausėda turned down the nominations of lawyer Mindaugas Jablonskis for energy minister and former Vilnius official Povilas Poderskis for environment minister. In a statement, the president stressed that incoming ministers must inspire full confidence in their ability to defend the public interest, resist outside influence and ensure the smooth functioning of sectors crucial to society.
Both nominees were put forward by the party Nemunas Dawn. Its leader, Remigijus Žemaitaitis, said Friday that if the president refuses the party’s nominees, the coalition agreement signed in August could collapse. In that case, he said, the party might demand control of another ministry instead of energy.
After the president rejected the candidates for environment and energy ministers, Nemunas Dawn leader Žemaitaitis said that this voided the ruling coalition agreement.
“Yes, the agreement automatically expires when the deadline for forming a government has passed,” he told reporters in the Seimas on Monday.
Ruginienė submitted 14 ministerial nominations in total, 12 of which Nausėda approved. He accepted Nemunas Dawn’s candidate for agriculture minister, Andrius Palionis, but rejected the other two.
The Social Democrats, Nemunas Dawn, and the Farmers and Greens Union signed a coalition deal last month to form Lithuania’s 20th government.
Nausėda has previously said he would not appoint ministers from Nemunas Dawn because its leader is on trial for anti-Semitic statements and denying the Holocaust. Prosecutors have also opened a separate investigation into the party’s financing.
Neither Poderskis nor Jablonskis are members of Nemunas Dawn.
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