The Christian Party has declared that it will not join the ruling coalition until the Government is headed by Andrius Kubilius.  The newly created Christian Party, which has 12 MPs, in fact stated that they will not join the ruling coalition, since it is very difficult to imagine that Mr Kubilius would resign, at least for the time being.

The Christian faction’s status will remain unchanged, which is neither position nor opposition.  The new party’s leader, a former controversial Prime Minister Gediminas Vagnorius after Christian Party’s presidium meeting on 17 February said, “Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius has neither a plan of action nor the political will necessary to achieve economic and social change. “   Mr Vagnorius continued, “Expanding the ruling coalition under the current Prime Minister would be more harmful than beneficial to the country.”

Prime Minister’s adviser Virgis Valentinavičius said to the press that the demands from the Christian Party cannot be taken seriously.  Valentinavičius said, ‘When the party is trying to be invited and makes such demands, it does not look serious.’

It seems that the Christian Party has manoeuvred itself into a corner.  The Party leadership has completely alienated the Conservative Party’s leadership.  Its hopes that Kubilius could be removed from the Prime Minister’s position are very slim.  Even though Kubilius position in the Conservative Party are becoming increasingly shaky but he is strong enough.  Nevertheless, some of the political commentators predict that the Conservatives have no choice only to remove Kubilius from the Prime Minister’s post.

The ruling coalition is also experiencing difficulties, especially after one the MP from the Centre Liberal Party will decide to leave the faction and it will be reduced to six MPs.  (According to the Parliament’s Statute a political faction could contain no less than seven MPs).  Even though the ruling coalition formally holds majority in Seimas only by one MP, when it comes to the voting the line between coalition and opposition somehow becomes blurry.  The party discipline in Lithuanian Parliament is very weak.

The Christian Party understands that the opposition is divided and in the case if it would form a coalition the Government it would not last long.  The coalition of more than four parties with Social Democrats on one side and the Order and Justice Party on the other side is bound to collapse.  The opposition parties are only imitating being the constructive opposition, but they are too diverse to form a working Government.

The leader of the opposition in Seimas Valentinas Mazuronis from the Order and Justice Party on Lietuvos rytas TV live broadcast invited Vagnorius’ to join the opposition in creating an alternative programme to the Government.  Vagnorius answered that they will not yet join the opposition; perhaps having in mind that the Party is still has a chance to join the current ruling coalition.  It seems that if he will maintain behaving like that this will not happen.  Still tomorrow could bring surprises.