In the last two months the Lithuanian political scene has witnessed the birth of two new political parties.  Even though the Lithuanian People’s Party claims to represent the centre left, and the Lithuania’s Christian Party plans to be the voice of the centre right, they have more similarities than differences.

Let us start with differences, since there are only few of them.  One of them was mentioned above, their claims of their political leaning.  Another is that the People’s Party has declared that it will be openly pro Russian party.  The Christians declared that they would aspire to the Scandinavian values (whatever that means).

Another fundamental difference between the parties is that the People’s party is not a Parliamentary party.  The Christian Party already has twelve MPs in the Seimas.  How is it possible for a newly formed party, which is not even officially registered yet to have a  significant number of MPs?

The answer is very simple.  The United (One) Lithuania political faction had twelve MPs in the Parliament, but they did not have an official party structure to represent them in Lithuania.  This happened after the Show Stars party calling itself Lithuania’s Insurrection Party was swept into parliament during the last elections.  The party not only had almost twenty MPs, but the newly formed party joined the ruling coalition, and their leader Arunas Valinskas managed to get the second most important post in Lithuania, that of Seimas’ Speaker.  However, soon the group of friends gradually realised that working together as a party in the parliament is different to having a birthday party with cakes and flowers.

It took them half of year to come to the conclusion that they cannot be together any longer and so the faction split.  Seven MPs, loyal to Mr Valinskas, the leader of the party left the faction and formed the Oak Faction hopping that the majority of the former partying mates will join them.  However, this did not happen, and those who stayed in the Insurrection faction decided to name themselves the United Lithuania Faction.  Before that, the Insurrection party presidium expelled from the party their colleagues who rebelled against Mr Valinskas.

Hence, a peculiar situation developed in the Parliament.  A political faction of twelve MPs did not have a party base in Lithuania to represent them.  Needless to say, those in the United Lithuania who thought about the next elections had to think twice how to extend their presence outside of the Seimas’ walls.  It seems that a perfect solution came across when former Prime Minister Gediminas Vagnorius (in the third and the eighth governments) made a suggestion to create a new political party.  Mr Vagnorius is a controversial politician who had badly fallen out with the Conservatives and created his own party.  His Party of Christian Conservatives Social Union never made it into the Seimas, and there was little hope that it would in future elections.

Vagnorius’ party has a base in Lithuania; the United Lithuania political faction has twelve MPs.  That was is a fantastic arrangement for the both parties.  However, the newly established Christian party run into trouble, as did Prunskiene’s People’s Party earlier.

The People’s Party failed to register today.  The Justice Ministry refused them on the basis that their documents were not in order. The Ministry stated that in order to make the appropriate changes the party will have to call another congress.

The Christian party ran into similar difficulties, but not with the Ministry of Justice.  Since the party used name a word ‘Christian’ it attracted a lot of criticism from commentators and the Church.  It appears that the word ‘Christian’ in the party’s programme it is used only in the context that it is in the party’s name.

The heads of the Lithuania’s Christian communities has sent a letter to the Ministry of Justice asking them to consider the name of the party. In a statement the Christian Church leaders stated, “We hope the new political party will make responsible decisions, be bold and forfeit this title, replacing it instead with one of a different political message and identity in Lithuania’s political life. We hope Lithuania’s

Justice Ministry will also be responsible in terms of registering the party’s title”.  The Christian party’s leader said that the party would consider changing its title in reaction to the Christian Church hierarchy.

Hence, it might take some time until both parties will become officially registered in Lithuania.  And yes, there is another striking similarity between these two new parties.  Since there are already about forty political parties registered in Lithuania perhaps those two are just two too many.