These political wolves have been working on the Seimas for decades – remember what they looked like when they started

Interestingly, many politicians in restored independent Lithuania kept their political views fairly stable, if defined. Perhaps the exception are two politicians: Emanuel Zinger, who briefly belonged to the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party in 1989-1991 but later became a right wing, was involved in founding the Homeland Union, and Petra Gražulis, who was initially an active Christian Democrat. , then it became an “orderly” and finally, after the dissolution of the party, it was left without political force.

Some of the old politicians, divided in the party, as in the case of the current social workers, went to another political force, but essentially represented similar points of view. Others, like Rimantas Jonas Dagys, differing political opinions with the party leadership, united like-minded people in their own political force, which is more extreme than the one in which they worked until then.

Delfi invites you to remember what current political wolves were like when they came to work at Seimas for the first term.

The current president of the social workers, Gediminas Kirkilas, is one of the parliamentarians with the longest service in the Seimas. According to official information available on the Seimas website, he has been working at Seimas since 1992. Throughout his political career in the pre-crisis fourteenth government, he has been prime minister. At the Seimas, he worked primarily in the fields of national security and foreign policy; He is the head of the National Security and Defense and Foreign Affairs Committees.

Kirkilas’s career is not just about politics. In the first period, after graduating from the Vilnius Pedagogical Institute studying Lithuanian language and literature, he worked as a restorer. A politician has the highest category of restorer-gold. Later, he graduated from Vilnius University with a degree in political science.

Another former politician, I. Šiaulienė, is also in the Seimas for the seventh term. He has been in politics since the restoration of independence. 1990 the woman joined the Lithuanian Democratic Labor Party (LDDP) and actively participated. Until then, she has completed a history study, defended her dissertation at Vilnius University on the topic “Lithuanian Communist Youth – Helper of the Communist Party in the struggle for the victory of the socialist revolution and its consolidation in Lithuania”. She worked as a teacher.

Another parliamentarian who counts for the seventh legislature in the Seimas is the social democrat Algimantas Salamakinas, who most remembered when he was president of the Ethics and Procedures Commission. Like I. Šiaulienė, he joined the LDDP in 1990. Before that, after high school, he worked in one of the collective farms in the Kėdainiai district, and then in the “Progresas” factory as a turner, he was the president of the union from the workshop.

Since 2012, curator Vilija Aleknaitė Abramikienė also works at the Seimas. The MP graduated from the Lithuanian Conservatory, before teaching in the parliament she taught in the piano department. The woman has written articles for the weekly North Athens and worked as a correspondent for Radio Free Europe.

The conservative Emanuel Zinger, who was elected to the Supreme Restorative Council-Seimas in 1990 and is one of the signatories to the Independent State Act, can also be considered a true elder of Parliament. The MP worked in the Seimas without interruption until 2000, then spent a term and returned from 2004. In 2000-2004, when he was not a member of the Seimas, he ran the Vilnius Gaon State Jewish Museum. E. Zinger is a philologist by training. He is a graduate of Vilnius University. Later he became a graduate student in the Department of Lithuanian Literature. He was president of the Jewish Cultural Society.

The conservatives Audronius Ažubalis, Irena Degutienė, Jurgis Razma, the social worker Juozas Bernatonis, the liberal Kęstutis Glaveckas, the social democrat Algirdas Sysas, the former conservative Rimantas Jonas Dagys are already finishing their sixth term in the Seimas.

Former Social Democrat Algirdas Butkevičius and former “orderly” Petras Gražulis also work as members of the Seimas.

So far, I. Degutienė, the only one of these old politicians, as promised, is not running for the Seimas of the next term on any TS-LKD list, whether in a single or multi-member constituency.