When cultural workers protested against the decision to give the Culture Ministry to Nemunas Dawn under the coalition agreement, Vilnius University professor Ainė Ramonaitė surprised everyone by stating that she did not understand the protesters’ uncompromising attitude, especially after the party’s nominee, Ignotas Adomavičius, resigned as culture minister.
According to the Vilnius University Institute of International Relations and Political Science scholar, this resembles an attempt to overturn the government, demonise an unpopular political party and portray the opponents as evil, while claiming moral superiority. Professor Ramonaitė warns that this approach could lead as far as questioning the election results, which does not serve democratic stability.
The professor says that Nemunas Dawn’s presence in the ruling coalition is nothing new in Lithuania’s political history: parties such as the Labour Party, Order and Justice, and the National Resurrection Party have all held power before. According to Ramonaitė, one of the reasons why no far-right party has ever firmly taken root in Lithuania is that such parties are absorbed into the government, allowing public anger to dissipate, rather than accumulate.
Nevertheless, the professor sees Nemunas Dawn as a threat to the Social Democrats’ image and popularity." To be honest, I see Žemaitaitis as a threat to both the Social Democrats’ image and the risk that Nemunas Dawn could gain further popularity,” the scholar said.
"The Social Democrats face a dilemma: if they throw Žemaitaitis out of the pot, they might improve the situation, because working with him is constant suffering. But, on the other hand, he could become more popular and draw away part of the Social Democrats' electorate. It's an unsolvable dilemma – whichever way they turn, it’s bad."
Why do you believe it is undemocratic to demand that the Culture Ministry should not be given to Nemunas Dawn or that the party not be part of the ruling coalition? You’ve said that such demands go beyond the bounds of healthy civic engagement.
To begin with, everyone has the right to protest. Expressing an opinion, civic engagement, in principle, are good things. It may have sounded otherwise, but I certainly did not mean to suggest that people do not have the right to protest. I completely understand the anxiety and the good intentions of the people who protest.
If my words offended anyone, that wasn’t my intention, because I respect those who joined the protest. I am just trying to say that we should take a more nuanced view, because there is a growing hostility to compromise. In this case, the protests were initially directed at the culture minister, but after his resignation, demonstrators still declared, “We won’t back down.” The focus shifted from criticism of the ministry to rejection of Nemunas Dawn altogether. But then what? No other area would want a Nemunas Dawn minister. Eventually, it turns into a demand to change the government entirely.
But the criticism seems to be aimed at the coalition, not the government in general. Because there is no resistance to the Social Democrats, only the suitability of Nemunas Dawn.
Yes, although in the last show with Edmundas Jakilaitis, it seems to me, there were already suggestions that the Social Democrats might be unreliable or unpatriotic.
These are most likely individual opinions; there were no such slogans at the protests.
I am certainly not saying that you cannot protest against coalitions. But my point concerns the logic itself. It turns out that if you don't like the lawfully elected government, you can simply say, "We will protest against this government".
Studies show that the state of democracy has deteriorated greatly over the last twenty years, most dramatically in the last decade.
The reason for this deterioration is the polarisation of society. Why? Because democracy relies on the fact that if your opponents win the elections, you accept the result.
But now, as polarisation deepens, political opponents are seen as enemies (and you don't compete with the enemy, you destroy the enemy). Therefore, this polarisation is sometimes called political sectarianism, because politics is starting to be viewed through a moral prism as an existential struggle. We can see traces of this in both camps.
A battle between good and evil.
Yes, good and evil. Each side believes it is fighting against evil, for good. And here is a paradox. The voters of Nrmunas Dawn most likely think that they are battling evil, too.
Imagine what happens next. In one election, the Social Democrats and Nemunas Dawn win, but the supporters of other parties say, "No, we disagree". Now imagine the conservatives come to power, but then the supporters of other parties can say, "We do not want such a government". We have already seen this with the so-called Family MarchWhere does this lead?
I understand what you are saying, but that seems an extreme scenario when groups in society question the election results or do not recognise them. In this case, no one questions the results of the Parliament elections. It is recognised that Nemunas Dawn legally holds a faction of 19 seats in the Parliament. I have not heard any proposals to dismiss Nemunas Dawn’s other ministers or MPs.
In this case, passions flared up when Nemunas Dawn delegated a person to the position of minister of culture who objectively does not meet any criteria, and the prime minister and president failed to act as proper gatekeepers. I do not see any questioning of the election results here.
That questioning is taking place at certain levels, but, of course, it has not reached the point where the election results are branded illegitimate. This is partly because Nemnunas Dawn did not receive that many votes. I wonder what would happen if they did, but I hope we will not have to consider such scenarios.
Political scientists have long noted a causal relationship that when an attempt is made to oust a party from power, its popularity grows. We saw this, for example, in Germany, and now we see the same thing in Lithuania, according to recent polls. Such parties often claim that some educated elite is trying to silence them. If Nemunas Dawn continues to grow in popularity, we may have serious problems, which is why we should be cautious not to fuel that popularity.
So, is it better to incorporate them into the government?
As Ainius Lašas put it on LRT Radio, it should work like a vaccine. The appointment of the culture minister, which was certainly not glamorous, could also have served as a vaccination that shows that this party is only capable of appointing such ministers, has no people, and no competencies. In this way, voters are shown what happens when you elect such a party. But when you don’t let them show it, you push them away in advance, then some voters create a different image in their mind.
When the Culture Ministry was handed over, I too felt indignant – why should any area of governance be treated as less important or traded away? But again, from a democratic perspective, can we really say that the voters of Nemunas Dawn do not have a say in culture?
Of course, their voters have that right.
But imagine if Nemunas Dawn comes with some vision of cultural policy, shouldn’t their voters have the right to see it implemented? They campaigned on promoting the development of culture in the regions and the like, after all.
It’s just that the words of the resigned culture minister contained a lot of untruths: he claimed everything was centred in Vilnius, and there are supposedly no cultural events in the other regions.
Absolutely. It’s clear that the party’s knowledge of this sector is poor; that’s obvious. Still, there is a sense, and voters might feel this too, that they are belittled: as if the electorate is too uneducated, naive to engage in the field of culture. One can even see the beginnings of a class divide.
But Nemunas Dawn nominated a candidate who is genuinely unqualified to be culture minister. The criticism is not about their electorate but about the political force that nominated a person with no expertise.
I made no comment while Ignotas Adomavičius was still in office as culture minister. But once he resigned and protesters said, “We’ll continue anyway,” it felt like an uncompromising stance, which raises questions about where this is heading. Is the goal to push for early parliamentary elections?
Would that be a bad scenario for Lithuania?
Actually, I think it would be quite bad. Of course, we’re talking hypotheticals, but I don’t see much benefit in early elections. In such a geopolitical situation and with such a divided society, early elections would create instability. Do we really have the luxury for that now? That’s one question.
The second thing is, does the protesting side really imagine that early elections would deliver a result favourable to them? I’m afraid that the opposite may be the case. As the latest polls show, Nemunas Dawn's popularity is rising sharply with these protests.
We would end up with a long interim government, where authorities cannot function normally, and the election results could further complicate the situation. What would we, as a state, gain from this situation?
– I recall how early elections greatly complicated the situation in France and Israel. You are probably thinking about this too.
– Yes. When you are in such an echo chamber of like-minded people, it seems to you that it is obvious to everyone that everything is very bad here and that voters will act differently. But looking from the outside, based on the data, you see a completely different picture.
In my opinion, what’s needed is a calmer approach. It seems to me that even the Nemunas Dawn members understand that they do not have high-level candidates in the party, because the party is very new, mixed, and simply lacks experienced people to nominate.
This is, of course, a problem, but not unprecedented. When you think about it, the same Arūnas Gelūnas, who is now protesting, was once appointed culture minister from an equally strange political force – the National Resurrection Party.
If anyone remembers their rise to power, it seemed at the time that politics couldn’t possibly sink any lower. But somehow this did not stop the Homeland Union and the Liberals from cooperating with this party.
I do see a slight difference here: it may be difficult for Nemunas Dawn to find good candidates, because the party has a bad reputation. Of course, there are decent, capable politicians there, but the most visible figure is the party leader Žemaitaitis, and his remarks leave a good impression. Meanwhile, Arūnas Valinskas did not have a bad reputation; he was simply a showman.
Still, if we recall the National Resurrection Party’s programme, which consisted of ten points, or their list of MPs, many of whom had nothing to do with politics…
Or when you look back at the old campaign advertisements of the National Resurrection Party, where they are half-naked on a Ship of Fools or in a prison with checkered shirts. You realise, I’ve seen it all before.
We’ve been through so much, including Viktor Uspaskich and Ramūnas Karbauskis. After all, in the past, almost the same things were said about Karbauskis or the Farmers and Greens Union as they do now about Žemaitaitis and Ignas Vėgėlė.
So, you see, we have had so many similar situations, so many cries that the sky is falling. For some, it’s become like a mythology that no one believes in anymore. And that’s where I see danger here, because if you keep shouting "I’m drowning," when you’re safe, then when you really are drowning, no one will believe you anymore.
That’s why you need to be very careful when declaring something a great threat.
Cultural figures are and have long been the basis of civil society during the Sąjūdis era. If we drive a wedge between groups, and a time comes when we need to be united, but the cultural society is viewed as some sort of opposing political force that does not recognise the right of other groups to have their own representation in the government, what will we do? We do not have the luxury of polarising and dividing ourselves into groups like this in the current geopolitical situation.
I understand that your main concern is social polarisation, because once society is divided, it is difficult to find a common ground. But, shouldn’t all sides strive for convergence of views? Cultural workers protested, expressed dissatisfaction, but the leader of Nemunas Dawn responded by calling them screaming, uncultured intimidators. Surely, he also increases polarisation.
When other groups protest (for example, during the violent riots outside the Parliament against the Homeland Union, conservative government), we heard calls that the protesters need to be understood.
Sometimes I get the impression that, according to you, only Vilnius and the conservatives (Homeland Union) should understand and sympathise with everyone, but Nemunas Dawn or its voters from the regions are not obliged to understand or sympathise with anything (although I understand that the Vilnius-versus-provinces distinction is not entirely accurate).
In one of our studies, we assumed that there might be a division between Vilnius and the provinces, but the data show that everything is not quite like that, because both are more diverse than one might assume.
And yes, that is a fair criticism of me. But when it comes to Nemunas Dawn, we kind of assume that it is a populist party that does not care about the state, only winning opportunistically, and when we talk about the Homeland Union, we imagine that this political force cares about the homeland.
If that’s true, if they care about the country, then they should consider the state's perspective. It is only natural to expect more from them.
Because it is normal that people without higher education or public-speaking experience might express themselves more emotionally or bluntly. But if people do have such skills, then it is fair to hold them to a higher standard.
By that logic, surely we have the right to demand that Žemaitaitis not attack the protesting cultural workers, journalists, to behave according to the standards of civility.
Yes, of course. But he is relishing the opportunity to turn the tables, to use the same vocabulary that was once used about protesters on the other side, mocking their screaming and shouting.
It’s just that these protests are incomparable in form: when the riots broke out near the Parliament, there was definitely shouting, threats, and physical aggression, and the court cases are still ongoing over that.
Of course, but the choices of form could have been considered better. One of the elements of the current protest of cultural workers was shouting. Young people said, "Here we are screaming in terror." This seems a little inadequate, because that terror doesn’t exist yet. It may exist, but it doesn’t yet. So what terror are you screaming about?
When you become emotionally involved, you lose sight of the broader context. I don't blame anyone. I understand that when people’s passions run high, they start to operate in moral categories and believe the world is collapsing and needs to be saved. But pause for a moment, cool down a little and look at the bigger picture.
When your passions run so high, the other side begins to invent all kinds of conspiracy theories. Then the belief that there exists some elite that is not allowing you to come to power becomes convincing to people, because otherwise they don't understand what is happening.
You say that both sides need to come down and talk, but I get the impression that the Government was trying to do that. The culture minister resigned. Inga Ruginienė herself immediately said that she would evaluate the work very carefully and would not allow wrong decisions to be made.
It seems to me that there was an attempt to find a compromise on the part of the Government, but there is no attempt to find a compromise on the other side.
I remember when there were farmers’ protests. They protested, reached a compromise and left; they did not insist on staying until some victorious end.. In this case, no one wants to compromise; instead, they seek to escalate the situation further. This raises questions about where all this might lead if we think ahead.
You say that people screamed in horror during the protests, although that horror does not even exist yet. But from what Ignas Hofmanas, the former Nemunas Dawn-nominated agriculture minister, described, even non-partisan ministers of this party cannot work independently.
Hofmanas said that Žemaitaitis pressured him to dismiss the heads of subordinate institutions and tried to interfere in the formulation of the terms of recruitment operations.
We are talking about nepotism here, an attempt to mix his own people into subordinate institutions. I am not saying that other parties never do this, but the latest testimony concerned Nemunas Dawn. So that fear has a basis, the terror exists.
Of course it does. I am equally worried about the Environment Ministry, because it is a really sensitive area. Unfortunately, fewer people are interested in environmental protection than in culture. But that is why it is important to scrutinise matters, raise the standard, and make it clear that, if you act illegally, immorally, then we will hold you to account.
Who is "we" in this case? Who is responsible for that supervision? Civil society, Social Democrats?
First and foremost, probably the Social Democrats. It seems to me that both Gintautas Paluckas and Ruginienė have taken responsibility for controlling the situation. In a sense, it also rests with the president, and then with the media, and everyone else. Of course, caution is needed, and the public’s support, in general, is a very healthy thing.
But there is another problem. Often, people confuse illegal or unlawful actions with merely having a different political perspective. Because if you have your own vision of how things should work in the state, then if someone does something differently, it may seem to you that it harms the state, and whether it really harms or not is a debatable question.
Can you give an example? I remember that recently, there was anger over the government’s plan to buy out private shareholders’ stakes in the energy company Ignitis. There were also heated discussions about the health care reform, over ending the option to make co-payments for higher-quality services in private institutions that receive public funding. Is that what you are talking about?
Since I am not an economist, it is difficult for me to comment on whether these are normal proposals or not. But in our country, everything is very heated, politicised, and any proposal, even if it is quite innocent, is very quickly turned into a threat. If we knew how to distinguish between what’s a matter of ideological perspective and what’s a genuine harm to the state, things would be much better. I think the big problem is that we label everything that we dislike as anti-state activity.
Could you give examples of when incorporating populist parties into government has had a positive effect, that is, their support base stopped growing, or such parties turned into normal, mainstream political forces? In Lithuania, we have had the Labour Party, Order and Justice, which participated in the ruling coalition, and few people were outraged at that time.
Exactly. For a long time, scholars have been asking the question of why there have been no strong far-right populist parties in Lithuania until now. The answer, no matter how paradoxical it may sound, is that we let all kinds of populists into power, and they represented the dissatisfied part of society. In this way, we let off steam. Because if we had not systematically let them in, that steam would have built up, and we would be facing a much worse situation today.
But when you allow such parties to come to power, voters become disappointed, because those parties are often incompetent and often completely opportunistic, rarely delivering anything meaningful for the people they claim to represent. Of course, it is a pity for those voters, but when different groups are given a chance to come to power, resentment does not fester. It is never pleasant to accept an inexperienced party into a coalition, but in the end, it does more good than harm.
Especially since those parties rarely dominate. The only exception was in 2004, when the Labour Party collected 28 percent of the vote in the multi-mandate race; only the second round of elections was less successful for them, but they did not take full control of the government, but they were a leading party. And still, the Social Democrats managed to stabilise that situation.
Do you think there’s a fundamental difference between those past situations and the current one? Namely, that today’s Social Democratic leaders are perhaps no longer strong enough in terms of authority and popularity to be able to effectively control their populist coalition partners?
Because Algirdas Brazauskas’ authority was unquestionable, Gediminas Kirkilas was known as a cunning fox, and Algirdas Butkevičius had very high approval ratings. Their populist coalition partners didn’t dare oppose them publicly.
Good question, I don't know how to assess it. At first, it seemed that Paluckas also showed leadership and controlled the situation. Looking at the work of Paluckas’ government, it actually performed better than I expected. And some decisions seemed quite reasonable, but then everything turned out like this.
Ruginienė's situation is more complicated, because she is not the party leader. Another thing is that it is impossible to control Žemaitaitis, because he knows very well that he got into the Parliament precisely because of his specific way of doing politics. He himself realises that if he started behaving like a normal, constructive politician, he would destroy his image. Therefore, the idea that he could be tamed and turned into a well-behaved politician has proved unrealistic, and one can understand why.
The Social Democrats face a dilemma: if they throw Žemaitaitis out of the pot, they might improve the situation, because working with him is constant suffering. But, on the other hand, he could become more popular and draw away part of the Social Democrats' electorate. It's an unsolvable dilemma – whichever way they turn, it’s bad.
Translated to English by Mėja Pauliukaitė
