East Versus West

Worrying news from Lithuania, where the country's fledgling democracy appears now to be under attack from pro-Russian forces that are trying to influence the outcome of the presidential election runoff due to be held on June 27. At the Jamestown Foundation, the political analyst Vladimir Socor writes that the Lithuanian government's Special Investigation Service (SIS) has raided the offices of the two governing coalition parties - the Social-Democrats, led by Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas, and the New Union/Social Liberals, led by Parliament Chairman and acting head of state Arturas Paulauskas - as well as those of the two opposition parties that support the government's policies on issues of democracy, market economics, NATO and US relations - in other words, the parties that maintain and support Lithuania's present pro-Western stance. Socor continues:

The SIS action clearly seeks to influence the election's outcome and, with it, Lithuania's international orientation. SIS has targeted the four parties that recently organized the impeachment and removal of President Rolandas Paksas (2003-2004). Paksas allowed Russians linked to intelligence services and organized crime to penetrate the presidential office. The targeted parties support the candidacy of former President Adamkus, a Lithuanian-American, in the June 27 election runoff. His opponent, Kazimira Prunskiene, has long-standing Russian connections. Paksas and allied left-leaning groups support Prunskiene in her bid for the presidential office, and have entered into an alliance with her party for the upcoming parliamentary elections as well. Valentinas Junokas, the SIS chief who ordered the actions against the pro-western parties, is a Paksas holdover and known personal sympathizer of the removed president.

By virtue of its actions on June 22, the SIS seeks to propel the Prunskiene-Paksas alliance into the presidency now, and into Parliament in the September elections with a view toward forming a governing majority. SIS' actions targeted the four pro-western parties, seeking to paint them with a broad brush of corruption and discredit them with voters on the eve of the presidential runoff. The SIS' actions have stunned and confused the political establishment. State institutions are unable to react due to lack of information. Many politicians find it difficult to object to an operation that claims to prosecute corruption, as taking a stand against such an operation on election eve seems politically risky. The legal basis for the SIS operation is far from clear. The political authority under which the SIS acts is murky, and the mechanisms for democratic control over the agency are now found to be inadequate and dysfunctional. SIS chief Junokas gave ambiguous answers and withheld hard information from members of Parliament during June 22 hearings. Prosecutor-General Antanas Klimavicius, testifying alongside Junokas, failed to clarify the role of the prosecutor-general's office in the affair, or the relationship between the SIS and the prosecutor-general's office. Klimavicius seemed to passively condone the SIS actions, even complaining that politicians and the media were overreacting. The main question in these hearings concerned the timing of the SIS operation, just days before the presidential election runoff. Junokas and Klimavicius blithely conceded that the SIS action might have been mistimed.

In sum, Junokas and his team seem to be acting out of control; no political or state authority seems willing or able to effectively challenge the SIS actions. The presidential office is vacant, with Paulauskas serving as interim head of state until a new president is inaugurated. The parliamentary chairmanship also became vacant when Paulauskas became interim president. That parliamentary post is temporarily held by left-leaning Social-Democrat Ceslovas Jursenas, self-described as "ideologically close" to Prunskiene. Slightly more than half the Parliament's membership took part in a June 22 vote to instruct the legislature's security and defense committee to prepare a report on the SIS matter by June 24. On June 23, the State Defense Council instructed Klimavicius to probe the legality of SIS actions and present a report by June 25. Meanwhile, the State Security Department has a newly appointed and inexperienced leadership.

Few politicians seem willing to speak their minds at this juncture, although many undoubtedly agree with a statement made by Adamkus. "Lithuania's democracy is in danger. This move cannot be viewed otherwise than as an attempt to influence voters in the presidential election, destabilize the situation, and undermine the country's international standing. I hope that the state and appropriate institutions, including Parliament, will take urgent steps to establish what is behind these actions, whether laws were broken, and where these actions were initiated," Adamkus stated (LNK-TV, June 23). From Poland, Zuokas stated, "These actions have been fully influenced by foreign intelligence" (Reuters, June 22).

As usual in litmus test situations, Fatherland Union/Conservative leader Vytautas Landsbergis, who was the first head of the restored state from 1990 to 1992 and served as parliamentary chairman from 1996 to 2000, presented a clear-cut political diagnosis. Landsbergis said, "A synchronized attack has been launched on all political parties that don't back the Russian-preferred candidate Kazimira Prunskiene. Russia is playing its last card after Rolandas Paksas...The state has come under attack. The state must defend itself" (Reuters, Delfi web site, June 22).

Lithuanian mainstream media and think tankers view the Paksas affair, and now the Prunskiene candidacy in the context of Russian attempts to change Lithuania's -- and other ex-Soviet-ruled countries' -- western orientation by exploiting various internal economic or political vulnerabilities. In the case of Lithuania, and also Latvia, this is almost certainly the last chance for Moscow.


It looks as though this really may be the beginning of a last-ditch attempt by Moscow to achieve what it has failed to achieve since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1989 -- the subjugation of at least one, and possibly two, of the Baltic States that regained their independence at that time. Where demographic politics have failed, the long arm of the secret police (with a long-serving officer in charge in the Kremlin) is about to make a grab for power.


Hat tip: Mari-Ann Kelam and Leopoldo Niilus


Update 28/6 2004: President Adamkus has won a second term - some details at the BBC website.