Text: Evelina Gudzinskaitė.

27^th of February is the day of municipal elections in Lithuania. Will you be there?

If you have spent a winter in Lithuania, you will probably know what a flu virus is. It is very contagious, and one must be really careful or very strong in order to remain healthy throughout the winter. But there is another virus, a more dangerous one, because it persists, it changes shapes, it infects one in various ways and it can corrupt even the healthiest organisms. It is a virus of scepticism. 

Local people are just not happy with their country, their surroundings, their neighbours, their lives in general. The biggest part of debates or monologues in the media is of a pessimistic, criticizing nature. Each positive news gets lost easily and is forgotten. And then, everyone knows that an article which mashes someone into dust gives one more points in political career, so why bother in trying to create healthy atmosphere?

But why do I call it a virus? Because it contaminates almost every newcomer. You can observe how a foreigner comes here with big or smaller aims to create something big, something useful, to give something for this country. She or he radiates incentive, spreads ideas, suggestions, how to improve the administration of the country, how to make people happy. Then with time such radiation diminishes. Suddenly you hear that life is not so simple here (after a year or so), that it is quite complicated (after a couple of years), that it is very difficult and needs some major improvements (after five years). Then you can state that the foreigner has melted with local inhabitants: she or he complains, but does nothing in order to change at least a thing. And justifications are similar: “what can I do? I’m just a foreigner...”

Well actually you foreigners can do something. You can elect people into local municipal councils or even participate in the elections. You CAN participate in governing the town or village where you live. We even amended our Constitution in order to let you do it!

In 2007, when the economy was booming and people were confident that life would get even better, 25 foreigners decided to participate in the municipal elections. It could not be because of their failure to win that this time we have only one foreigner, a citizen of Poland, who decided to enter elections to the Vilnius municipal council. Such shrinking in foreigners’ participation number must be caused by this virus, this disbelief that something could be changed in Lithuania.

Indeed, it seems that after every elections situation worsens. But maybe this time will be different? Many candidates believe so and are ready to work for a common good. It is now up to the voter to elect the right councillors. However, it won’t be an easy task, as these elections offer huge variety of personalities and political streams.

Will foreigners dare to take part in this game and share responsibility?

Eligibility requirements

Let’s just make a short break and check whether you (if you are a foreigner) meet the election requirements. Not every foreigner can vote or participate in the elections – only those who are permanent residents of Lithuania. The status of a permanent resident is granted after 5 years of continuous legal residence in Lithuania. So check, what document you have:

- If you are a citizen of the EU or Norway, Iceland, Switzerland or Lichtenstein, you must possess either a card named “Permanent residence permit of a citizen of a member state of the European Communities” (Europos Bendrijų valstybės narės piliečio leidimas gyventi nuolat; these cards are not issued anymore), or a certificate confirming the right of the EU citizen to permanently reside in Lithuania;

- if you are a family member of a citizen of the EU or one of those other 4 countries, you must have either a card named “Permanent residence permit of a citizen of a member state of the European Communities” (Europos Bendrijų valstybės narės piliečio leidimas gyventi nuolat; these cards are not issued anymore) or a card with a title “Residence permit of a family member of a citizen of an EU member state in the Republic of Lithuania” (Europos Sąjungos valstybės narės piliečio šeimos nario leidimas gyventi Lietuvos Respublikoje), which is valid for 10 years;

- if you are not such family member and you are a citizen of a so-called third country, you must have a permanent residence permit in the Republic of Lithuania (to be a long-term resident of the European Community).

If you don’t know what municipality you belong to, you can find it here by entering the address of your declared (official) place of residence in Lithuania. If you didn’t receive the voter’s card, you can obtain it from here. So it’s simple: you take this voter’s card, your passport or an ID card, find the place where the voting will take place, and visit it on the 27^th of February. Well, you also have to understand some Lithuanian – in order to mark the correct party or candidate.

And some information for the future: foreigners can also participate in the elections themselves. Foreigners cannot be members of Lithuanian political parties, but they can be included into lists of political parties as non-party candidates or they can nominate themselves as independent candidates to the municipal councils. In order to become an independent candidate, a person must collect a certain amount of voters’ signatures (this amount varies from municipality to municipality, and it is calculated by the Central Electoral Commission). The municipal councillor is the highest governmental position that a foreigner can obtain in Lithuania – the posts of mayors and vice-mayors are reserved to Lithuanian citizens.

There are more than 20 thousand foreigners in Lithuania who are permanent residents. Having excluded minors we still get a significant number of voters who can bring in their own views on how municipalities should be governed.

What choices do we have?

During first elections people mostly voted for traditional parties. When these parties didn’t bring expected changes, people started looking for other “saviours” (although the traditional parties maintained their electorates). First, various new parties started emerging; usually they had a famous leader, but other members were not well known in the society. Such was the Labour Party (Darbo partija), founded in 2003 by a Russian millionaire Viktor Uspaskich (now suspected for tax fraud), or the party “Order and Justice” (“Tvarka ir teisingumas”), founded in 2002 by Rolandas Paksas (a politician who twice resigned from the post of the Prime Minister, a former mayor of Vilnius during whose term of office Vilnius municipality started sinking into debts, and finally a president who was impeached for breaching the Constitution of Lithuania – just to mention a few of his resignations and removals).

When people became disappointed of all politicians in general, various TV stars or controversial personalities entered the political arena. As they justified their names and didn’t transform themselves into real politicians, it is unlikely that they would be re-elected. For example, the Party of National Revival (Tautos prisikėlimo partija), composed of various actors, musicians, TV stars, etc., was created just before the Parliamentary elections in 2008, and won 16 seats in the Parliament (out of 141). However, after various internal quarrels and splits, it lost its political weight, and for the coming municipal elections it presented its lists of candidates for only 8 municipalities (out of 60). It didn’t even bother to create some common electoral programme.

The upcoming municipal elections are particular by the fact that it will be the first time when individual candidates, who do not belong to any political party, will be able to participate in the municipal elections. Therefore these municipal elections present as colourful bouquet of candidates as ever: together with the political parties, one sees various social movements and independent candidates; besides, the list of participating stars is refreshed by new artists and sportsmen. It seems that even the most eccentric voter should now be able to find her or his favourite candidate.

There are more than 17 thousand candidates who wish to obtain one of the 1 526 mandates; more than 11 thousand of them have never participated in elections before, 60% have higher education. Average age of candidates is 46. For the first time, the number of participating women (more than 7 thousands) almost came up with the number of participating men. Almost 300 participants are millionaires.

More than 200 candidates confessed about their previous convictions (usually for minor breaches of law), and the Central Electoral Commission already established that almost 250 other candidates have concealed the information on their previous convictions (they will be removed from the elections). Voters will be informed about the candidates with previous convictions by special remarks under their photographs in places of voting.

More than 20 members of the Parliament and 3 members of the European Parliament entered their names on top of candidates’ lists. It is unlikely that they seriously intend to change their mandates; however, their names will attract more votes for the party.

There are 23 political parties, 11 parties’ coalitions, 515 independent candidates and 39 coalitions of independent candidates.

One can notice that the main slogan of many coalitions of independent candidates is “we are different than them, political parties”. Just look into their titles: Coalition “Different Lithuania” (“Kitokia Lietuva”), Coalition “We – Non-party Returned Emigrants” (“Mes – nepartiniai grįžę emigrantai”), Coalition “Differently” (“Kitaip”), Coalition “For Changes” (“Už pokyčius”), etc. Also the word “non-party” dominates in their language; check, for example, the Coalition of Non-party Candidates “Vilnius – Our Business” (“Vilnius – mūsų reikalas”), who decided to bury political parties; Coalition of Artūras Zuokas and Vilnius, supported by A. Zuokas’ (former controversial mayor of Vilnius) social movement “Yes!” (“Taip!”), who stresses that non-belonging to any political party allows candidates to remain professional (although A. Zuokas himself and some other candidates were previously successful members of political parties); Coalition “United Kaunas” (“Vieningas Kaunas”) promises to work instead of talking and remain decent, etc.

Taip!

So the traditional political parties have many troubles in trying to maintain their electorate. First of all because some of their own members do not believe in them and decide to follow the local popular trend – to change political parties, sometimes choosing completely opposite political views. Second of all, because people continue blaming the government for all the misfortunes that they experience, for the fact that situation in Lithuania does not compare to the situation “out there” (in the West), forgetting that the government represents the political will of the people. And also because the traditional political parties represent the three main political streams, which for some people today associate with three main political ways of lying.

It will be particularly difficult for the conservatives, the Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats (Tėvynės Sąjunga – Lietuvos krikščionys demokratai). They had a misfortune to win the parliamentary elections in 2008 (received 45 mandates), when Lithuania was ready to jump deep down into the ocean of economic crisis. In order to save the country from a possible bankruptcy, they had to make a lot of unpopular decisions. This caused dissatisfaction of various groups of society who used to receive social and financial benefits from the state, but also of businessmen, because their tax burden was increased even more. These municipal elections will be a real test of the loyalty of the conservatives’ electorate.

Exactly this diminishing popularity of the conservatives seems promising to the socialists, first of all, the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party (Lietuvos socialdemokratų partija). They safely spent the most difficult time of the economic crisis in the opposition (the biggest group of opposition, 24 mandates in the Parliament), criticising the reforms without providing constructive alternatives, so they created an image of fighters against injustice. Besides, their campaign promises sound very sexy: “The state of common welfare has no place for poverty, unemployment, social inequality, violations of human rights. Economic reforms are never made at the expense of social justice of people”. Who wouldn’t vote for that? However, if people remember that this political party has the biggest number of mayors (17) in the present municipal councils, when the level of corruption and inactivity continues rising in many municipalities, they might reconsider their choice.

A liberal party, the Liberals’ Movement of the Republic of Lithuania (Lietuvos Respublikos liberalų sąjūdis), is in a peculiar situation in this context. Although forming a part of position in the Parliament (13 mandates), they have to agree with some decisions which contradict the liberal ideology. However they succeeded in implementing some of their ideas, especially in those areas which fall under the competence of the liberal ministers (minister of education and science, minister of transport and communications and minister of justice). It seems that their electorate agrees with the liberals’ programme, and the support for the Liberals’ Movement is steadily growing.

What outcome can we expect?

It may seem strange that, while talking about municipal elections, I look into the situation at the national, parliamentary level. Well it is not strange at all. There is still a big lack of understanding about the functions and role of the municipalities. Many people often forget that the municipal administrations are responsible for various issues which directly influence the surroundings of inhabitants, and often require the Parliament to solve issues which actually fall under the competence of municipalities. And vice versa – while electing municipal councillors, people expect them to increase salaries, pensions and reduce taxes, which could be done only at the national level.

Thus many people will look at the Parliament and decide whom to vote for in these municipal elections. And the participants in the elections are aware of that. Therefore they spread many promises which would never be implemented exactly because the municipalities don’t have the power to do so. Besides, political parties use these municipal elections as a test platform for the upcoming parliamentary elections in 2012.

Actually, just a few people care about reading electoral programmes. Most of people will vote for personalities, their favourite political streams or – as it happened in the past – for some marginal personalities or movements just for the fun of it.

One Lithuanian right-wing weekly magazine, “Veidas”, asked various experts in law, economics, political science, sociology and territorial government to evaluate electoral programmes. The experts noted that the programmes were mostly filled with slogans, vain expressions, such as “we will aim at”, “we will strive for”, without explaining how this would be done, where the funds would be taken from, etc. The experts gave marks for the electoral programmes, taking into account their feasibility, intellectual potential and professionalism.

The highest mark 8 (out of 10) was given to the Liberals’ Movement of the Republic of Lithuania (so this party did have the reason to choose their slogan “Liberals – the rights of sensible mind” (“Liberalai – sveiko proto dešinieji”)) and the conservatives, the Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats. The second best mark 7,5 was given to a central party New Union (Social liberals) (Naujoji sąjunga (socialliberalai)), a socialist party Union of Social Democrats of Lithuania (Lietuvos socialdemokratų sąjunga) and a right-wing party the Lithuanian Peasant Popular Union  (Lietuvos valstiečių liaudininkų sąjunga).

To resume, the choice of candidates and ideas is immense. However not all of candidates would be willing or capable to keep their promises. Just a minority has experience how the governing should be done; others will have to learn in the process. With no doubt, independent candidates will have to form coalitions with major political parties in individual municipalities and lose their “politics-free” pose; otherwise they would not be able to implement their vision.

The outcome of the elections will also very much depend on who will come to vote. Usually the voters’ participation rate is not high, especially among younger people. In order to increase the participation of the youth, the Liberals’ Movement had suggested introducing the possibility to vote in these municipal elections by internet; however, this idea was rejected by other political parties. And one can only guess whether they did it because of the fear that Lithuania is not ready for the e-voting, or because of the fact that their electorate is more mature and would not use the e-voting possibility anyway.

Let’s hope that these municipal elections will be a peak of political variety and experiments and that the next elections (to the Parliament) will be considered more seriously and responsibly.

A big educational work should still be carried out. People should learn to read the political language, to follow history, to connect consequences with the real reasons, and to understand that the civil society can govern not only by entering municipal councils or the Parliament, but also by demanding responsibility from the elected ones.

Foreigners could also do their part, by getting involved more in the municipal lives, by sharing their experience, points of view and by helping to create nicer environment for everyone.

So, will you be there on the 27^th of January?

Sources of reference: www.lrs.lt, www.vrk.lt, www.delfi.lt, www.lrt.lt, www.veidas.lt