We already were used that the President of the Republic only formally enjoys the “position of the first” in Lithuanian state power hierarchy.  While taking into consideration his real powers and influence to the formation of state policy, he was considered to be only the second or the third highest statesman.

The President Dalia Grybauskaitė is changing this perception. Today it would maybe arise not so much doubts that D.Grybauskaitė is also a real head of state. It is enough to see how unwillingly, frowning, however, keeping his hair on, the Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius is replacing the Minister of Foreign Affairs, in whom, without any *prima facie* serious reasons, the President expressed her non-confidence, even though the Prime Minister had confidence in him.

This kind of situation lead us to question if the preconditions for transformation of a parliamentary republic, even though it has certain features of a semi-presidential republic, to presidential republic are not being created?  I don’t know how much there’re are citizens, disappointed by the functioning of the political system – in the system, such as it was till now – and longing for order and for a strong hand of a single state master, however, the number of this kind of citizens is for sure not small and these citizens would gladly approve of the aforementioned transformation.

This part of the citizens does not care that almost in all post communist countries these presidential regimes converted into authoritarian regimes or even into dictatorships with bigger or smaller restrictions of democracy, political freedom and human rights. For the people, who find themselves on the edge of misery and poverty, also for a part of the representatives of business democracy, political freedom and human rights are not the most important things and ultimate values.

Still I would think that today there’s no reason to suspect that the President has authoritarian intentions. The President is acting and is strengthening her political powers by using the formed political situation, i.e. by using the fragmentation and fragility of the governing coalition, under the conditions of financial and economic crisis – the growing unpopularity of the politics of the Government as well as the growing unpopularity of the Prime Minister himself, the absence of united opposition and the opposition’s unpreparedness, despite of the latter’s promises to take over the burden of the executive power, as well as by using the opportunities, provided to the President by the Constitution, those opportunities, that were not used by the previous heads of state.

If the President does not want to restrict herself only by the position of moral authority and seeks to act actively within the limits, provided to her by the Constitution, she has to place a personal reliance upon those officials and politicians the appointment, deposition and control of whom in one or in another way is prescribed to the head of the state by the Constitution. These things the Member of the European Parliament Vytautas Landsbergis had in mind when he publicly evaluated Presidents motifs as sufficient – those motifs, resting upon which she expressed non-confidence on far from bad working Minister of Foreign Affairs and initiated the procedure for his replacement.

In other words, the President is doing those things, which are allowed for her to do by the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania and trying to fulfil her promises that she gave during the electoral campaign. Thus, so far the President is fulfilling the expectations of the majority of her voters.

Of course, there’s a mysterious intrigue in the President’s acting. I don’t know if this intrigue is formed consciously (even though the long term programme of political action is not declared, even if such a programme does not exist or does not exist yet), or it flows from masterful, alluding to an authoritarian President’s policy style, and especially from the manner of public talking, which, it goes without saying, is very unusual and after a decade of the cadence of the President Valdas Adamkus, is making certain people anxious.

The suspicions are also boosted by the President’s foreign policy and especially by her efforts to correct Lithuanian policy in respect of the Easter neighbours – Russia and Belarus -, even though in this respect these efforts do not clash with the official policies of the EU.

And in general, it would be important for Lithuania, if the President, by initiating certain reforms, would use her present possibilities not only for the extension of the powers of the head of state, but also for the strengthening of the democratic basement of the state. 

—————————————————————————————-

The commentary is published by courtesy of Dr. Antanas Kulakauskas.  Doc. Dr. Antanas Kulakauskas is the Head of the Department of Political Sciences at the University of Mykolas Römeris.  He is also a prominent political commentator.  The Commentary was posted on 26 January on the Lithuania’s Public Radio’s site lrt.lt

Translated by Milda Bagdonaitė