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This project was unanimously supported only by the members of the Freedom Group who participated in the vote, and 3 parliamentarians from the ruling group Liberal Movement did not support the project, whose votes would have been enough to present the initiative and for further consideration in the Seimas. Even more opponents The partnership project received among the ruling conservatives.
However, Mykolas Romeris University (MRU) associate professor Dr. Virginijus Valentinavičius agrees that this vote was important for the coalition, but according to the political scientist, it should not have major consequences for coalition relations, as the ruling unions are right-wing economic and trade issues, not human rights issues.
“The coalition’s fighting spirit is undermined by this vote. This is probably the first really serious and important vote to be lost, but I don’t think the coalition will have a more serious impact in the near future, because the ruling coalition of the Freedom Party itself is the only place where they can do it. Do what they promise. “- V. Valentinavičius told Eltai.
Relatives of the ruling coalition are in no rush to be buried and Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) associate professor Dr. Andrzej Pukštas, emphasizing that almost all parliamentary factions have no ideological unity.
“I would be in no rush to bury this coalition, because the party leaders agree with each other and with the Prime Minister. And the fact that our members of political parties and even parliamentarians are not united by ideological principles is not the first time we have seen it. In the end, this vote showed that these differences go through all the parties, even there is no unity in the parties, “said A. Pukštas, noting that the Association project was not supported not only by the politicians of the ruling coalition, but also by members of the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party (LSDP) to this issue on the party’s program.
“If this project had received the support of the Social Democrats, whose leadership spoke very clearly and it was written in their program that they would support all the laws that make life easier for homosexuals,” said the VMU political scientist.
Meanwhile, in the Lithuanian Green and Peasant Union (LVŽS), which showed total resistance to this project, there were three politicians (Tomas Tomilinas, Rūta Miliūtė and Lukas Savickas) who voted in favor of the ruling initiative, which, according to A. Pukštas, shows once again that the official position announced by the leaders of political parties does not always coincide with the actions of ordinary party members.
On the other hand, in the Peasant Party, which spoke out strongly, we also see that 3 parliamentarians supported the initiative of the ruling coalition (…) our political parties are based on a vague principle, in fact all those parties have 2 – 3 leaders and then there is such a mass that it is not clear how they will vote ”, says a political scientist from VMU.
The vote on the Association showed how many “Taliban” there are among the Conservatives.
However, the vote that took place on Tuesday, according to V. Valentinavičius, will have a greater impact not on the Freedom Party, but on the largest parliamentary faction, the National Union, the Lithuanian Christian Democrats, as well as the mass of parliamentarians. opposing opinions. they arose from the most progressive leaders.
“This vote could have more serious consequences within the Union of the Fatherland, as it has become clear that there are more so-called ‘Taliban’ than expected. They were very encouraged by the support of President Nausėda at the Garliava-Vingis rally. Park, they raised their heads and showed how many there really are, ”says the MRU political scientist.
At the same time, he does not believe that TS-LKD will disintegrate, but the flank of the Christian-era faction is, in his opinion, a significant counterweight to the modernization of the Conservative Party.
“There will probably be no disintegration, but the young and ambitious party leadership faces the reality that a sufficiently large part of the faction represents the Lithuania of yesterday and, in principle, follows the populist path of President Nausėda,” says V Valentinavičius.
However, a Christian flank has long formed among conservatives, allowing political scientist A. Pukštas of Vytautas Magnus University to hope that some TS-LKD MPs would not support the Association Law.
“The conservatives were probably the least surprising, because those people are from the so-called Christian and national flank, and this flank was probably the least surprising. These people, whether they are Vilija Aleknaitė-Abramikienė or Audronius Ažubalis, these people talk about it for a long time and demonstrate their position, they will never support the liberal rights of gay people ”, assures A. Pukštas.
Parties face challenges in reconciling ideological attitudes with regionally elected faction members
The initiative of the rulers was not supported by three members of the Liberal Movement faction: Jonas Varkalys, Juozas Baublys, who supported the initiatives of LVŽS in the previous legislature, and Viktoras Pranckietis, who entered parliament with the peasants for the first time. It is the abstention of the former president of the Seimas on the subject of the Association that A. Pukštas does not mean, stating that maintaining ideological coherence is not important for people who seem to have entered politics by chance.
“People who accidentally fall into politics, for them politics is something very important, alien,” says the political scientist of the University Vytautas Magnus, emphasizing that the ideological inconsistency of V. Pranckietis may also manifest itself in the future.
“There are probably no limits to the smoothness of the Franciscan, here he will surprise more than once during this period, as he did during the previous one”, says A. Pukštas.
However, V. Valentinavičius believes that this vote only confirmed once again another problem of the factions: the elected politicians in the regions do not always support the ideological line of the parties. However, this vote, according to the MRU political scientist, should not widen the gap between the ruling.
“With the exception of the stronger and more progressive Freedom Party, every party has problems with their rural conservative wing. The Liberal Movement has that too, but those disagreements that have been seen before, I think, somehow don’t make them particularly strong. Now. The most important issues, first and foremost the management of the pandemic, should keep everyone in the same boat, at least for the moment, “says V. Valentinavičius.
