S. Skvernelis repeats the achievements of A. Kubilius and A. Butkevičius: what helped to survive?

Of the seventeen governments that have served since 1990, only the last two cabinets (not counting the current one) have served the four years so far.

A government, led by Albert Šimėnas, worked for Lithuania for only a few days during the dramatic period: from January 10 to 13, 1991.

The face of the current government, which took office on December 13, 2016, has changed significantly: the heads of eight ministries have changed and some professionals have been replaced by politicians.

Last year, S. Skvernelis, who was delegated to the heads of government of the Lithuanian Peasants and Greens Union (LVŽS) during the presidential elections, in which he participated, stated that he would resign as Prime Minister without entering the Second round.

“If we ask today if I will add, we will not go to the second round, I will definitely make a resignation on July 12. This is the last working day of the Government, if I remember the deadlines well,” he said on the night of the presidential elections on 12 July. May 2019, he said.

If we ask today if I will add, we will not go to the second round, I will definitely make a resignation on July 12.

However, S. Skvernelis still changed his mind and remained prime minister.

What clouds the water?

Rima Urbonaitė, a professor at Mykolas Romeris University (MRU), said that governments used to be unstable because we were a newly formed state.

So to immediately expect that everything will be coherent, “smooth”, without crisis or drama, it would probably have been naive.

“And it is not uncommon for governments to collapse. Not only in Lithuania, but also in other countries. In other words, that absence of governments throughout the period is not in itself an exceptional fact in Lithuania. We really see that in countries where It is not possible to form governments at all, sometimes it has been there for years ”, commented the political scientist.

According to R. Urbonaitė, the situation is now stabilizing a bit.

We have a well established system and we see that while the coalition partners and ministers are changing (more than half of them in the current cabinet), governments are surviving.

“The governments are not collapsing and there is already some stability. But, on the other hand, we can see all the underwater movements that cloud that water through how many members of the cabinet change, through how the composition of the partners of the coalition.

Well, this term is also about how those coalitions have changed: they are parties, they are factions, they are factions, they are parties. Here, picking the chamomile, we try to pick and guess the leaves, and with what composition we would end up: factions or parties ”, commented the MRU lecturer.

Here, like a chamomile, we try to pluck and guess the leaves, and with what composition we would end up: factions or parties.

R. Urbonaitė pointed out that the government of S. Skvernelis is maneuvering in the minority: the ruling coalition does not formally have a majority.

Therefore, the survival of the Cabinet of Ministers looks beautiful from a formal point of view, but looking deeper, as the political scientist pointed out, it can be seen that there is a lot of instability and unsustainability.

Commenting on S. Skvernelis’s declaration of intent to resign without winning the 2019 presidential elections, R. Urbonaitė clarified that Ramūnas Karbauskis first “threw” her into public space.

In this way, he allegedly pushed the prime minister into a corner, and in the middle of the electoral campaign, the latter could not say no, R. Karbauskis was wrong.

“Clearly, that does not change the background, because no collaboration has been completed and both have said what they said. I think it was possible to immediately understand here that there would be no such serious performances here and that no one would go anywhere.

There were ordinary electoral tricks by R. Karbauskis or simply, I would say, very unfounded speeches, which he is not lacking, as we know. We can remember everyone who won the elections, ”said the MRU speaker. – However, if we look at what allowed this Government to stay afloat, it is clear, in the first place, that the main group – the ‘peasants’ – was still very numerous, even bleeding.

The second thing that helped was that it was clear that with the collapse of this government, the opposition could not form an alternative. “

No more innovation

Professor Tomas Janeliūnas from the Vilnius University (VU) Institute of International Relations and Political Sciences (TSPMI) does not believe that the fact that the S. Skvernelis government works for the entire period is an achievement.

According to him, it would be an achievement if it were the first case after a long period of change of government. This is no longer a novelty in our political system.

“But given that we already have a new normal situation, the fact that it is a full-time government is not really surprising. Although there were times when it did not necessarily seem possible to do so. Here, of course, especially after the presidential elections. , the question arose as to whether the green peasants really continued to be the main base of that government. But it is as it is, and basically it is no longer a novelty in our political system, “said the political scientist.

Given that we already have such a new normal situation, the fact that it is a full-time government, in fact, is probably not too surprising.

T. Janeliūnas did not associate the fact that the third government will work for the entire consecutive period with our political maturity.

It is said that, in one way or another, survival often depends on the successful cooperation between coalition partners during the mandate and on maintaining a sufficiently strong relationship.

“The green peasants have had these problems for almost the entire period. From the split of the Social Democrats to the fact that they had to go to great lengths to control that majority after the presidential elections. Basically, just the skills of the political leadership here. apparently they helped the “peasants” to maintain that majority.

This is hardly related to any indicator that the political system is stabilizing, because it is far from stabilizing, because, above all, the party system is very fragmented in general, there are many participants in parliament. Consequently, when you need to form a coalition of many partners, that stability is so uncertain, ”explained the VU TSPMI professor.

The green peasants actually had such problems for most of the period.

According to T. Janeliūnas, the Government is directly related to the parliamentary majority commissioned by “peasants”. It is obvious to him that the LVŽS had no other choice than S. Skvernelis as prime minister.

The political scientist considered that this probably led to the fact that, although the majority remained in the Seimas, the objective was also to keep the main leader in the Government.

“In this sense, the green farmers did not have many options,” he said.

Neither better nor worse

According to T. Janeliūnas, the current government is not very exceptional compared to previous ones.

“Both in terms of scandals and, say, fluctuations in trust or mistrust, it’s something very special in one way or another compared to previous governments, and it probably wouldn’t even be possible to identify it. Clearly, that political specificity is always different. It depends on the personalities, the composition of the government and the political challenges they face. But neither is it anything better than terribly worse than previous governments, ”he commented.

But it is also nothing better than terribly worse than previous governments.

Professional politicians changed

According to R. Urbonaitė, these last governments, having worked throughout the mandate, acted under very different conditions.

In 2008-2012, the Cabinet of Ministers of A. Kubilius worked during the economic crisis.

Although there were various disturbances in the ruling coalition, for example, the Nation Resurrection Party faction brought to the Seimas by Arūnas Valinskas collapsed and the Government expired for four years.

“It just came to our knowledge then. But, I don’t think they collapsed because nobody wanted to nail the government that has to deal with such a crisis,” said the political scientist.

According to R. Urbonaitė, the government of A. Butkevičius in 2012–2016 worked in a period of economic growth, when it is quite easy to act.

“Despite the fact that some ministers are still deeply engraved in the memory. Like, let’s say, the former Minister of Education and Science, which so far many cannot forget. It seemed that sometimes A. Butkevičius does not fully control his cabinet, because of course there are ministers delegated by the coalition partners, and he really felt such a fall. At times, it seemed that these ministers no longer felt subordinate to the Prime Minister, ”commented the MRU speaker.

According to R. Urbonaitė, the current government has other peculiarities.

It is difficult to say that the ministers did not feel subservient to S. Skvernelis.

As the political scientist points out, some of them, the so-called ministers of President Dalia Grybauskaitė, felt and kept that distance a bit.

However, over time Rock Masiulis, for example, ceased to hold the post of Minister of Transport.

R. Urbonaitė stressed that this government has undergone a transformation that its two predecessors did not have: the transition from a professional cabinet to the usual one of ministers composed mainly of politicians.

This government was famous for various proposals to ban and restrict something. However, according to R. Urbonaitė, the bills that provide for it came more from the Seimas than from the Cabinet of Ministers.

It cannot be said that the government was exceptionally bad or, on the contrary, exceptionally good, in the opinion of a political scientist.

“While maybe now we remember everything closer because it is the least distant event in terms of time, but I think after an even longer perspective of time, to say that it was somehow exceptional in one way or another, probably not we will tell. It may continue to be, I would say, more gray, because Seimas shone more with some of their initiatives and certain performances. And the cabinet kept a small distance even at some points. Even the relationship between the members of the Cabinet and the Seimas, by the way, was sometimes quite complicated and it seemed that this connection did not even exist ”, mentioned R. Urbonaitė.

It may continue to be, I would say, more gray, because Seimas shone more there with some of their initiatives and certain performances.