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The top ten on the electoral list are each party’s business card, seal, statement of priorities and values. What message are the parties sending about themselves to the voter who will elect the new Seimas on October 11? Kauno diena continues the rehearsal cycle, this time featuring the elite of the “Way of Courage”.
The Ten Paths of Courage is the only one among seventeen parties so short and unguided. Most are non-party members.
Be vedlės
“I will be back at the same time, before the 2020 elections,” said Neringa Venckienė, former judge, former parliamentarian, founder and former president of “Drąsos”, a famous refugee who was returned to Lithuania by her will in November last year.
A decade ago, the so-called pedophilia scandal gathered crowds of N.Venckienė supporters not only in Garliava, Klonio Street, but also in other parts of Lithuania. So it was expected that in the elections everyone would vote for her and the party “The Way of Courage” established in March 2012. N.Venckienė was seen by her supporters as the President of the State, and the “Way of Courage” was sweep of the Seimas by the so-called systemic parties.
I went back in time, before 2020. elections.
But in 2012. In the parliamentary elections in the single-member constituencies, voters did not give a single mandate to the party called Violet, and in the multi-member constituencies, mainly by the votes of the voters of Kaunas and Kaunas districts, they won seven, as much as it took to form a faction.
However, the life of the faction was not long. In less than five months in 2013. In April, the Seimas revoked N. Venckienė’s legal immunity and allowed her to be prosecuted in cases related to the pedophilia scandal. At the same time, they are missing in Lithuania. N. Venckienė’s mandate was revoked only after the MP did not visit the Seimas for more than a year, in 2014. She was indicted in June. The “Road of Courage” faction remained, and the political careers of its members ended with the end of the term.
Although the refugee who returned to Lithuania announced the emergence of an anti-systemic coalition, his return did not provoke a new purple revolution. And the verdict of the Central Election Commission (CEC) not to register N.Venckienė as a candidate for the Seimas for not allowing her to stand in the 2014 elections. The impeachment process that took place also deprived the fading party of the last chance. to get at least some attention. N.Venckienė appealed the CEC’s decision to the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania, but the latter approached the European Court of Human Rights with a request for an advisory opinion, and until then suspended the case.
The top ten were left without another member. Introducing his candidates to the fifth issue of “The Way of Courage,” he appointed translator and reviewer Aurimas Guogas. But, according to the party chairman John Varkala, “On the road of courage” has become undesirable due to a difference of opinion.
The party is barely alive
The second ex-clergyman J.Varkala, who assumed the position of president of the “Path of Courage” from N.Venckienė, says that he no longer actively participates in party activities. “I am old, I am not healthy. But I have no hope that something can change,” he says.
I am old, I have no health. But I also have no hope that something can change.
During the lone flash of “Road to Courage” in the political sky in 2012. J.Varkala became a member of the Seimas. 2016 was the only one from the old “Path of Courage” faction who tried to return to the Seimas with their roster, but suffered a fiasco, by the way, like a couple of others running with other political forces.
Then, in the Seimas elections, “Drąsos kelias” remained last, collecting only 0.27 percent. votes. He did not win a single term and did not participate in the 2015 city council elections, nor did he participate in them at all last year. In a report presented to the CEC, “El Camino del Valor” reported that a new member had joined the party last year and had resigned, died or been dismissed 48. This year, the party declared it had 2,394 members.
But instant success made this spinoff a millionaire. Although the faction of this party has survived in the Seimas for just over a year and a half, The Way of Courage has received state grants for the entire period. According to the CEC, it was allocated 1 million during the term. 95.2 thousand euros.
Enriched “Drąsos kelias” decided to invest in real estate as well: she bought 188 square meters of premises for her headquarters in the very center of Kaunas, Kęstučio Street. Delfi.lt announced that an ad had appeared on the property sales portal that these premises were sold for 180 thousand. euros. But, reported J.Varkala, so far it has not been possible to sell the premises.
Jonas Varkala. Photo by A. Ufartas / Fotobankas
A faithful companion
Besides J.Varkala from the 2012 “Road of Courage” faction, now only Vytautas Matulevičius participates in this group’s list. All this time she remained faithful to N. Venckienė, she even testified in the United States during the discussion of her case, she and her son created an abi.lt portal for news related to her. It now ranks fourth on the list.
By the way, he did not enter the “Path of Courage”. “Although I am not partisan, I am running for the Seimas on the list of the” Path of Valor “party. Why them? Because this party embodies a problem that will not change in the state if it is not solved. In this sense, the” Path of Courage “is really part of a problem. The problem is everything – all our most frightening pains and disappointments”, – explains V. Matulevičius.
During the Soviet era, he worked in various youth and cultural publications in Lithuania and Russia. 1989 He returned to Lithuania as a correspondent for the newspaper “Pravda”, but half a year later, in 1990. In April, he issued a public statement to the editor-in-chief of Pravda on the hostile assessment of the Lithuanian liberation processes in the newspaper and refused to cooperate in this publication. Then he worked in television, directing programs of his own author.
2002 decided to run for president, but received support from 1.9 percent. voters, it is true, then there were even seventeen candidates. V. Matulevičius became a fan of election winner Rolandas Paksas, who was soon removed from office by impeachment. He made a documentary about his impeachment of “All Against One” and wrote the screenplay for the feature film “Pilot.”
2009 V. Matulevičius became an assistant to R. Paksas in the European Parliament. It was announced that with “Order and Justice” in 2012. will run for the Seimas. However, in the history of Garliava, the position of V. Matulevičius and the “policemen” did not coincide, and he decided to connect with the newly created “Path of Courage”.
It is true that Laimutė Visockienė, a businessman from Garliaviškės, director of the UAB “Eismo juosta”, surpassed the loyal V. Matulevičius on the electoral list, saying that he had met N. Venckienė visiting the graves of relatives in the same cemetery where he was buried N. Venckienė’s brother, Drąsius Kedus.
Two lawyers
The elite of the “Road to Courage” list: two lawyers. Sixth – former prosecutor of the Vilnius Regional Prosecutor’s Office, now Legal Adviser of the Legal and Personnel Division of the Ministry of Energy Nerijus Bieliauskas, eighth – Arvydas Balčius – lawyer of the sanatorium “Pušyno kelias”, an active supporter of N.Venckienė.
While working as a prosecutor, N. Bieliauskas investigated the so-called pedophilia case. He later accused the Attorney General’s Office of irresponsible behavior by refusing to form an investigation team and commissioned it to conduct an investigation into the child abuse case alone. Furthermore, he suggested that the case be referred to Kaunas for investigation, as all the persons mentioned in it were residents of Kaunas and he was in Vilnius, but the request was not considered.
The former prosecutor is convinced that the painful tragedies in Kaunas could have been avoided if the appropriate measures had been taken, so in September 2011 he resigned.
Does not belong to the party
Among the eight people in the top ten, “Road of Courage” includes just two: J.Varkala and the ninth on the list is Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Vytautas Pečiūra. As a candidate of this party, he served in 2012 and 2016. He participated in the Seimas and in the 2015 local elections in the Utena district, but without success. By the way, only he and J. Varkala were also in the top ten of the “Path of Courage” four years ago, and the others of the current one weren’t on the list at all.
The list of “The path of courage” is not long, only 47 surnames.
Non-partisan and seventh on the list Alvydas Rakauskas – administrator of the website “Drąsos kelias”, professor at the Kaunas Food Industry and Trade Training Center, catechist at the Kaunas Adult Catechesis Service Eduardas Vaitkus, professor who completed the Top ten, a licensed physician and a longtime Kaunas Clinics physician, does not belong to the party.
By the way, this was also the case for those who only won the 2012. elections. Among the seven winners, only two of them were members of this party: N.Venckienė and J.Varkala. Others are from different ideological barricades: V. Mululevičius, former Christian Democrat Algirdas Patackas, former conservative Aurelija Stancikien former, former LDDP activist Povilas Gylys, now a candidate in the 2020 elections, Valdasisas Vasinkais Nationalist, on the list “Lithuania – everyone”.
Phoenix nematyti
The list of “The path of courage” is not long, only 47 surnames. It also includes Algirdas Endriukaitis, signatory of the Act of Restoration of Independence, Vytautas Zenevskis, lawyer, Vytautas Jankauskas, former prosecutor of the General Prosecutor’s Office, and Jovita Pretzsch, vice president of the Lithuanian Trade Union Solidarity.
There is no sign that we will see a purple phoenix in this election. The popularity of the “Path of Courage” was instantaneous: in a poll by the Center for Market Research and Public Opinion “Vilmorus” / “Lietuvos rytas” in October 2012, the party said it supported 5.8 percent. of respondents, but the curve tended to go down, and a year later the number of supporters was less than 1%, and at the end of the quarter they were only 0.1%.
In the “Vilmorus” / “Lietuvos rytas” poll this September, only 1.8 percent said they planned to vote for “The Way of Courage.” surveyed.
“The way to courage” ten
one.
2. Jonas Varkala
3. Laimutė Visockienė
4. Vytautas Antanas Matulevičius
5.
6. Nerijus Bieliauskas
7. Alvydas Rakauskas
8. Arvydas Balčius
9. Vytautas Pečiūra
10. Eduardas Vaitkus
Current Seimas members: 0
Current members of the municipal councils: 0
It was in 2016. in the 10: 2 election
Age: 41 to 69 years, average 60.4 years.
Gender equality: men 7, women 1
Beginning policies: 6
Match Finalists – Top: 0
Non-party members: 6
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