The Seimas of Lithuania on Tuesday adopted amendments to the Election Code, which stipulate that candidates will have to state not only their current but also their former party affiliation, including membership in the Communist Party during the Soviet era.
The Seimas of Lithuania on Tuesday adopted amendments to the Election Code, which stipulate that candidates will have to state not only their current but also their former party affiliation, including membership in the Communist Party during the Soviet era.
However, the deputies did not approve the amendments proposed by the ruling conservative party “Fatherland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats”, which would have required candidates to declare whether they were members of the Communist Party, as well as to indicate the positions held, and this information would be indicated on election posters.
According to the adopted amendments, candidates will have to indicate their previous membership in political organizations, as well as the period of membership. In the current version, it is stipulated that candidates must indicate only their current membership in a political party, political committee or association, while previous membership in parties can be declared voluntarily.
The amendments were supported by 110 legislators, but one member abstained.
The strictest conservative proposal was passed by 81 MPs, three against and 15 abstentions, but at least 85 votes are needed to amend a constitutional law such as the Electoral Code.
“They will still have to indicate their former affiliation to the Communist Party, just like all the other parties they belonged to, but there will be no information on the poster,” said the author of the proposal, Andrjus Wišnauskas from the Conservatives.
At least 20 members of the Lithuanian Seimas were members of the Communist Party during the Soviet era, although only two declared it in the candidate’s questionnaire before the elections, according to a research by journalists published by the “15min” portal in September.
Declaring membership in the Communist Party in the election candidate’s questionnaire is not mandatory, but voluntary, and those deputies who have not declared it have not committed any offense.
It has already been reported that in April, the Lithuanian public was shocked by the discovery by the journalists of the TV channel “Laisves TV” that the country’s president Gitans Nausėdas was a member of the Communist Party during the Soviet period, although he did not declare it in the candidate’s questionnaire before the elections.
The former president of Lithuania, Dalia Grībauskaite, stated in the candidate questionnaire before both the 2009 and 2014 elections that she had been a member of the Communist Party since 1979.
