ABSTRACT
Introduction The roots of the Lithuanian party system can be traced back to the Lithuanian ‘Singing revolution’ of 1988-1991. The longstanding monopoly of the Lithuanian Communist Party was broken in 1988 when the Lithuanian liberation movement Sąjūdis was formed. It was a broad umbrella-type organization which played a crucial role in the process of democratic transformation in Lithuania and which later gave birth to several influential Lithuanian parties. The main ideological adversary of Sąjūdis was the Lithuanian Communist Party (later transformed into the Lithuanian Democratic Labour Party), even though the positions of the two forces were quite similar regarding some issues. During the first free elections in 1990 both Sąjūdis and the Lithuanian Communist Party were in favour of more political and economic sovereignty for Lithuania. The position of Sąjūdis, however, was much more determined than that of the Communist Party. After the declaration of independence on 11 March 1990, the main division between the two political forces was regarding the question of the speed at which economic and political reforms should be introduced, and relations with Russia. The Lithuanian Communist Party advocated a step-by-step reform policy and good relations with Russia, while Sąjūdis aimed at forcing events and increasing political and economic distance between Lithuania and the former Soviet Union. Before the early parliamentary elections of 1992, Sąjūdis began disintegrating as some of its activists created their own parties. The bigger party, led by Vytautas Landsbergis, the main architect of Lithuanian independence, continued to exist under the label of Sąjūdis, and later transformed into the Homeland Union (Lithuanian Conservatives). Although the party lost the elections, a two-block structure of the party system was maintained with the ex-communist Labour Democrats on the left of the party spectrum and the Homeland Union (Lithuanian Conservatives) on the right. The other two parliamentary parties with a much smaller share of seats were the Lithuanian Christian Democrats on the right and the Lithuanian Social Democrats on the left. This simple structure of the Lithuanian
party system continued to exist after the 1996 elections and this relative stability allowed some scholars to conclude that the process of structuring the Lithuanian party system was over (see Žeruolis, 1998). Even though electoral volatility was quite high in comparison with Western European countries, low fragmentation and a bipolar pattern of party competition remained irrespective of somewhat successful attempts of the Centre Union to change the dominant conflict axis by forming a ‘third force’. The parliamentary elections of 2000, however, destroyed that apparent stability as two new players – the New Union (Social Liberals) and the Lithuanian Liberal Union – emerged on the political scene, expelling the Christian Democrats and the Centre Union from the political game. As it appeared later, this was only the beginning of the decay of the ‘traditional parties’. Despite the growth of the economy and the consolidation efforts of the main parliamentary parties (especially the merger of the Labour Democrats and Social Democrats), turmoil in the Lithuanian party system has been increasing as the elections to the European Parliament (EP) and the parliamentary elections of October 2004 have demonstrated. Three new parties managed to cross the threshold and win seats in the European Parliament and in the new parliament, including the Labour Party, which was founded only eight months before the European Parliament elections. The Labour Party, led by a businessman of Russian origin, was able to win about 30 per cent of the votes in the European Parliament elections and 28 per cent of the votes in the subsequent national parliamentary elections. Recent elections have revealed that the Lithuanian party system is undergoing a dramatic structural change, as ex-communist and ex-Sąjūdis parties have lost their dominant positions, party system fragmentation is increasing and electoral volatility is growing with every election. Therefore, the development of the Lithuanian party system must be divided into two stages: (1) formation of the party system in 1989-1998, and (2) destabilization of the party system, apparent since 2000. Consequently, the intention is not only to describe the development and characteristics of the Lithuanian party system, but also to analyse the destabilization of the Lithuanian party system in the last consecutive elections. The Formation of the Lithuanian Party System The first parties (apart from the Lithuanian Communist Party) emerged in postSoviet Lithuania in 1989. Most of theses new organizations claimed to be the descendants of pre-war Lithuanian parties (e.g., Social Democrats and Christian Democrats). In fact, however, the continuity is only symbolic because the leaders, the organization and the electorate of the parties have changed beyond recognition. The first free elections to the Supreme Soviet of Lithuania in 1990 were dominated by Sąjūdis and the Lithuanian Communist Party. Most candidates of new parties, as well as some reform-orientated Communist Party members and independents, were supported by the Sąjūdis. In the elections, Sąjūdis candidates won the
absolute majority and formed the government. Soon after the declaration of independence, the huge economic problems of the country and internal political disagreements disrupted the unity of the Sąjūdis and the Supreme Soviet. This invoked the second wave of creating parties, mainly on the basis of parliamentary groups. Finally, the fragmentation of the Supreme Soviet had become so high that it had to dissolve itself and to declare early elections. Before the elections, an agreement on a new Constitution and a new electoral law was reached among the main political forces. As a compromise, a semipresidential institutional design with a directly elected, though rather weak president, was adopted. Furthermore, a mixed electoral system combining singlemember districts and multi-member districts was introduced. Under the law, 71 members of the Seimas (the parliament of Lithuania) are elected in single-member districts by a majority system and 70 members are elected by proportional representation. This kind of a mixed system was in fact favourable to the largest parties, as was the national threshold of 4 per cent, which was later increased to five.1 The parliamentary elections of 1992 and the presidential elections of 1993 were successful for the ex-communist Lithuanian Democratic Labour Party (LDDP). By gaining about 43 per cent of the votes in multi-member districts, the LDDP won the absolute majority of seats in parliament (see Table 4.1) and could form a single-party government. Moreover, the leader of the party, Algirdas Brazauskas, won the presidential elections. Sąjūdis (later reorganised into the Homeland Union/Lithuanian Conservatives) remained the second largest party in the parliament, despite the defeat, and returned to power in 1996 by winning 70 seats in the parliament. Rather than forming a single-party government, the Conservatives created a governing coalition with the Christian Democrats, often regarded as the ‘younger sister’ of the Homeland Union. The Democratic Labour Party and Social Democrats formed a leftist opposition, while the Centre Union put itself in a vague position vis-à-vis the government. Destabilization of the Party System after 2000 The parliamentary elections of 2000 were a turning point in the development of Lithuania’s party system. The combined number of seats of the Homeland Union and the Democratic Labour Party decreased from 72.5 in 1992 to 42.6 in 2000 (Jurkynas, 2003), while the newcomers, the New Union (Social Liberals) and the Liberal Union, received almost 45 per cent of the seats in parliament. Moreover, the Lithuanian Christian Democratic Party and the Centre Union failed to cross the threshold and get seats in the multi-member districts.
