"After the municipal elections, journalist Andrius
Tapinas and his Laisvės TV launched a campaign to publicize office expenses of
municipal council members. District by district, this campaign quickly revealed
that many municipal council members throughout Lithuania abused the office
funds allocated to them and submitted fictitious expense reports. For fuel or
communication expenses the allocated money was simply cashed by collecting fuel
or similar checks from friends and acquaintances. The councilors simply
considered these funds as part of their remuneration, just cashed out without
taxation. Hence the check scandal.
Failure
Objectively speaking, these costs are not as high as the
scandal caused by them. Even if we were to assume that all the members of the
councils stole in this way, which was definitely not the case, the state's
losses as a result would certainly pale in comparison to the budget losses
created by numerous projects that did not receive such a resonance.
For example, just because of the way it was decided to
implement the construction of the national stadium in Vilnius, we will suffer
losses of over 100 million euros, and according to the latest news, this amount
will continue to grow drastically.
But it's natural that big projects and the money that goes
into them don't get the kind of reaction that tangible, everyday and, perhaps
most importantly, easily comparable fuel or communication costs do.
Every person, seeing bills of hundreds and thousands of
euros for fuel, telephone or stationery, can compare them with their own and
raise two questions: 1) where do such high costs come from; 2) why are these
funds covered for politicians, but not for me? The Chekiuku scandal has reached
such a scale because it embodies the privilege of nomenclature as tangibly as
ever. The same ones that the Sąjūdis movement fought against and still hasn't been
defeated. People's outrage, although disproportionate to the scale of the
theft, is understandable and obvious.
Since then, many politicians have been affected by the
ripples of the scandal, as it seems that in the ranks of all parliamentary
parties there are politicians who cannot or do not want to justify their
expenses. However, for the ruling party and especially for the conservatives,
this scandal became exceptionally painful for two reasons - accidental and
systemic. A random reason - they are now in power, they have a cabinet and in
that cabinet there are ex-councillors who couldn't justify their office
expenses with a checkbook. These are the already dismissed Minister of
Education Jurgina Šiugždinienė and the Minister of Finance Gintarė Skaistė and
Minister of Culture Simonas Kairys who are still waiting for something.
It is absolutely true that not only they, but also the
representatives of other parties are guilty of unjustified expenses. However,
it is normal for those in the most responsible positions to experience the greatest
pressure of responsibility.
Another reason is systemic - the conservative voter is a
voter demanding transparency and trusting Tapinas, just like the liberal voters
in 2016, who are now disappointed that the party that raised their very high
standards with words turned out to be the same.
Uspaskichas or Skvernelis party, maybe even LSDP (we'll see
soon) can afford to go through such a scandal quite painlessly, it's not the
point for their voters, after all they could always say that it's a fraud of the
conservatives.
Meanwhile, the voters of TS-LKD, especially the young ones – who
follow Tapinas and feel like the first transparent Lithuania – were duly
disappointed and forced TS-LKD to look for a solution.
Trickster
And TS-LKD found a solution, it must be said, really
ingenious. Realizing that responsibility is necessary here, but that it is
inconvenient to accept their exclusive guilt, the TS-LKD leaders thought of a
way out: to announce that it is a crisis of the entire system, that the entire
Seimas has been tainted with self-government checks, and that is why the entire
Seimas should resign, not the members of the Government. From the party's point
of interest, this is shrewd and clever. TS-LKD desperately needs to equalize
its role in this scandal with other parties, to appear as one of many, not
unique in a bad sense.
Dismissal of the entire Seimas is best suited for this, and
a much simpler, less demanding Seimas vote of no confidence in the Government
is certainly not suitable for this. By agreeing to a vote of no confidence in
the Government (for which 71 votes are enough), the so-called conservatives
would agree to an admission of their exclusive guilt. They don't want to allow
that. Rather, they will propose to the Seimas to give in themselves (85 votes
are required) - if they do not give in, they will be able to say that we wanted
to, but others did not decide. What if you give up?
Here is all the charm. Relaunching the Seimas would
definitely pay off in terms of benefits for TS-LKD right now. Of course, the
party would not get as many mandates as it has now. The latest ratings show
that they will receive very little. However, Kęstutis Girnius and other
political scientists who assess the situation in this way are mistaken. It
should not be compared with the results of 2020, which will not return, but
with what awaits TS-LKD in a year and a half. And in a year and a half, a
financial crisis is expected to accelerate, a conflict in Ukraine that has
probably resolved or (unfortunately) has become routine and no longer mobilizes
voters.
Regarding the same conflict, it became clear that essential
steps are not being taken due to the defense of the state. So a year from now,
you can get a much worse result than if the elections were held now. True, that
better performance than a year later does not mean that TS-LKD would be in
power again. They would probably end up in the opposition. After all, people do
not forgive the scandal, and they consider the elections themselves untimely.
However, if we believe in the prospect of a crisis, maybe it is the opposition
that is the best and safest for the current rulers to be? In short, for
conservatives, the idea of early elections is great not only as a bluff.
Only, of course, not for everyone. Those who are lower on
the list and risk not getting into the new Seimas assess the situation quite
differently than the party leaders and this is becoming public.
Not the first time
It should be remembered that this is not the first time that
the "conservatives" are playing the same game, raising the stakes to
the maximum. At first, Šimonytė promised that if any minister raised
suspicions, the entire Government would withdraw. This logic was then followed
during the Belarusian fertilizer transit scandal. Then, when the Ministers of
Foreign Affairs (Landsbergis) and Communications (Skuodis), who spoke untruths in public (or did not
manage the situation in the ministries at all), made a lot of money, the Prime
Minister did not accept their resignations and threatened to resign herself. It
worked great - it turned out to be too much and no one had to resign.
Now the game is being repeated: instead of the resignation
of specific ministers tainted by the scandal, it is proposed to dissolve the
Government and even the entire Seimas. The entire Seimas, partly because the
arrogant Prime Minister, you see, will not go to this Seimas to test her
confidence, although when it was necessary to appoint her as the Prime
Minister, the same Seimas suited her perfectly. Conservatives are playing a
so-called game of chicken where they say "all or nothing" and expect
others to back down first. And if not, the elections now will not be worse for
them in the fall of 2024.
However, from the perspective of the Lithuanian state, this
is an extremely arrogant and irresponsible game with the state's stability and
national interests. First, by protecting the face of the party and manipulating
how the check scandal will be received by the public, they are determined to
equate their crisis with the crisis of the state, and to repair their lost
trust at a particularly sensitive time by destabilizing the political
situation. By no means do I want to say that this government is good. On the
contrary, I am an unconditional critic of it. However, secondly, everyone
seeking power must take responsibility for it, and not pass it on to the voters
(primary elections) or the opposition (minority government) in the face of
crises.
TS-LKD this term has an exceptionally large faction and, at
the same time, opportunities to implement its policy. Whether it is good or bad
(I think it is very bad), it must realize the voters' expectations, and not
retreat in the face of the looming crisis. Finally, every state crisis (real or
artificial) is also a blow to its image in the world. The European media is
already talking, and it really doesn't matter what it will talk about: about
the waste scandal, or about the loose Seimas and the Government that is unable
to work.
Manipulation
The proposal to give up the Seimas and hold early elections
is manipulation on a rare scale. Landsbergis argues that there are 52 ex-council
members in the Seimas from all parliamentary parties, understand, all of them
have committed crimes. But what would the election change in that regard? There
are even several questions. First, will the former members of the councils who
are now in the Seimas no longer run in the new elections? If not, nothing
changes. Secondly, will the existing parties, whose representatives massively
abused stationery and which did not consider and punish them in internal ethics
meetings until Tapinas did it for them in
public, not participate in the elections? If not, nothing changes. Thirdly, before the election, would it be
presented to the voters who specifically abused stationery and who did not? If
not, voters would vote without full information and would not even
theoretically be able to "punish" the offenders. Fourth, clerical
expenses (and often higher ones) also exist in the Seimas, and there are
already cases in the public eye that they are misused with fake checks.
Will the cleaning of the same scale take place with the
office expenses of the Seimas? If not, nothing changes. After asking these
questions, it is easy to understand how artificial and absurd the supposed
"reloading" or "cleansing" of the system with primary
elections is. They would not overload anything, they would only help TS-LKD get
out of the puddle relatively drier than it is threatening now.
"Statesmen?"
TS-LKD proposes early elections, and not in the most
complicated way, just to divide and throw off political responsibility, thereby
sacrificing the stability of the political system and the image of a stable
state for the sake of the party's interest. Proposing early elections has no
other logic than TS-LKD's electoral and public relations crisis management
logic. We discussed that. This fact strongly contrasts with TS-LKD's constantly
positive self-image as a statesman's party.
The more observant should have noticed that the "Sąjūdis
Movement continued”going for more than a decade mythology in the rhetoric of
the TS-LKD was replaced by the mythology of the "statesmen's party".
From talking about the nation, we have moved to talking about the state
separated from the nation. As statesmen, the leaders of TS-LKD attributed to
themselves such basic qualities as taking responsibility, professionalism,
determination to make difficult decisions, the ability to manage crises, and a
strong backbone. It no longer makes sense to talk about the value backbone of
TS-LKD - the party that calls itself conservative already in its second term
massively supports all the most liberal provisions on family, language, life,
education and other issues.
However, the reaction to the check scandal shows as clearly
as ever that talk about responsibility, determination to make difficult
decisions and crisis management are worthless. Faced with a crisis, the TS-LKD
throws all the responsibility on the voters or the opposition and threatens to
withdraw, although it is true that it is distracted and lost between threats: the fact
that "Šimonytė will withdraw" replaced by fact that "Šimonytė will
consider".
What to do?
What really needs to be done in this situation? Taxation of
members of municipal councils should be regulated by law, not by regulations of
the councils themselves. It is best, if at all, to abolish clerical expenses
and establish a common-sense remuneration for the work of a council member.
This is almost the case in the city of Vilnius since the beginning of this
term. Without lying to yourself and the public, that it is possible to clean
yourself from all those who have ever received and allowed the office of a
member of the Council or the Seimas, to resign the ministers directly affected
by the shadow of abuse, and for the Government itself to complete the work for
which it assumed responsibility.
To return the embezzled funds to those politicians in all
parliamentary parties who have in fact unreasonably allowed or even used
clerical funds for personal use. In the case of the conservatives, this is
hindered by previous radical promises that we will all withdraw because of the
reputation of one minister and that we will not go to the Seimas for a
confidence test. However, if they wanted, the Prime Minister and G. Landsbergis
would move beyond those conversations. We don't want see the party interest or sick
principles placed above everything else."
It turns out that Nausėda is not the only communist.
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