Uspaskich at the Gate
// A Russian-Born Businessman Could Become Prime Minister of Lithuania
Power Struggle
The results of the first round of parliamentary elections were announced yesterday in Lithuania. As Kommersant predicted, the winner was the Labor Party formed a year ago by millionaire Russian-born businessman Viktor Uspaskich. His success has already led to speculation that Lithuania, which just joined NATO and the EU, could once again find itself under Moscow's economic influence.
“Nothing Is Left to Chance”
The success of Viktor Uspaskich's Labor Party (LP) was predictable. All pre-election polls gave it about 30%. The predictions turned out to be true – on the basis of party lists, the “Laborites” won 28.6% of the vote, well ahead of the other rivals. The reason the Labor Party did not achieve greater success was probably the extremely low voter turnout – fewer than half of them turned up at the polling stations.
The rapid rise of the party, formed exactly a year ago, came as a great surprise to many. Especially since a number of Lithuanian political scientists claimed that the Labor Party's program was too eclectic: it had everything in it from right-wing ideas to left-wing values. Its key positions – the fight against bureaucracy and changes in a number of provisions of the constitution and the electoral system – were sufficiently abstract that afterwards it was difficult to hold the party to them, but at the same time they were attractive to many people. The Labor Party's program focuses a lot of attention on social problems (tax optimization, pension increases, job creation), which voters also like.
There are no well-known politicians in the ranks of the Laborites, and the consensus in Lithuania is that Labor is a party of one leader. The native of the backwoods of Arkhangelsk Region, a former gas welder and now a millionaire with the very un-Lithuanian name of Viktor Uspaskich, arrived in what was then the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1987 to work on construction of a gas pipeline in the town of Kedainiai. Only three years later, he registered the first company of his present-day Vikonda concern.
Today, Mr. Uspaskich's assets are estimated at anywhere fro $50 million to $160 million. His business empire includes 30 companies employing more than 4000 blue- and white-collar workers. Many of Vikonda's companies (a meat-packing plant, a sausage plant, and a canning factory) are based in Kedainiai, where, as they say, nothing is left to chance: his mayor (Mr. Uspaskich's deputy in the Labor Party), his town council. He is lord and master, employer, and philanthropist for the town's 60 000 people. And it was from Kedainiai that Uspaskich the businessman made the move to politics, becoming an independent deputy in 2000.
He rode into politics on the wave of criticism of Lithuania's present political elite, which the LP leader maintains has not changed for more than ten years – from the time Lithuania gained independence. “We have everything we had in Soviet times,” he is fond of repeating. “More than half of today's politicians are former Communists. They're used to the Soviet system, where you kept your job until you died. But we want to move forward.”
Today, Lithuanians are asking the question: Where does Mr. Uspaskich intend to move to? Especially if he heads the country's government.
One of Ours among Strangers
The success of the native Russian's party has already aroused fears that Lithuania could once again find itself under Moscow's influence, even if only economic. Although Lithuania is a member of NATO and the EU, it is still heavily dependent on supplies of Russian gas. And Viktor Uspaskich has close ties with the Russian gas monopolist Gazprom. The Lithuanian division of the Itera gas company is under his control.
It was from the resale of Russian gas to Lithuania that Mr. Uspaskich earned his basic capital. And the head of the Labor Party often proudly shows visitors to his office the expensive gift from Gazprom's management on the occasion of this 40th birthday: a hunting rifle with gold inlay. Viktor Uspaskich is on friendly terms with Patriarch of All Russia Aleksii II. He built an Orthodox church with his own money in his native village of Urdoma in Arkhangelsk Region and on the grounds of Gazprom's grand Odyssey-Lazarevskoe Hotel in Sochi.
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Mr. Uspaskich's personal contacts with Gazprom's management are the main reason for the wary, mistrustful attitude towards him on the part of Lithuanian politicians. During the election campaign, Mr. Uspaskich's opponents tried vigorously to exploit the theory of the “uncertain origin” of the Laborite leader's financial resources and frighten the people with his Russian birth. Viktor Uspaskich said there was no conflict of interests whatsoever in this and that Lithuania must establish good neighborly relations with all countries by increasing its role as a connecting link between East and West. This thesis, incidentally, became part of the Lithuanian Laborites' program. And in order to impress the position of the party and its leader more quickly in people's minds, Mr. Uspaskich began publishing a national political weekly a year ago and a little later bought a regional television channel.
Nevertheless, Mr. Uspaskich was unable to convince everyone that he put Lithuania first and everything else second. Andrius Kubilius, the leader of the right-conservative Homeland Union, speaking at a press conference yesterday said that all of Lithuania's leading political parties must oppose the Labor Party as a “united front” in the second round of elections: “Our goal is not so much to win the maximum number of seats as to lessen Labor's chances of winning.” According to Mr. Kubilius, the presence of the Labor Party – which the conservatives lump with populist “pro-Russian political forces” – in the government of Lithuania will bring nothing but harm.
A Stranger among Us
The question in the present elections is whether Mr. Uspaskich and his party will be able to retain the advantage gained in the first round and increase their representation in parliament (currently 22 seats) by means of multi-member constituencies. Candidates backed by the Labor Party came first in 14 constituencies and second in 32. Even if they win them all, the Labor Party will have 68 seats in the new Lithuanian parliament (Seimas), three seats short of the absolute majority that would allow Mr. Uspaskich to form a government. Therefore, even if the party is successful in the second round, which will take place on October 24, he will have to look for coalition partners.
The question is where. The ruling coalition of Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas' Social Democratic Party and the social-liberal New Union headed by the Speaker of the Lithuanian parliament, Arturas Paulauskas, is in second place with 20.66% of the vote after the first round. The right-conservative Homeland Union (which besides conservatives includes the Christian Democrats and the Union of Lithuanian Political Prisoners and Deportees) came in third with 14.58% of the vote. The For Order and Justice movement, which rallied around disgraced former Lithuanian president Rolandas Paksas, is in fourth place (11.42% of the vote). (Incidentally, the political route is forbidden to Mr. Paksas himself: the Constitutional Court of Lithuania has banned him for life from running for any office that involves taking an oath.) The Liberal and Center Union headed by Mayor of Vilnius Arturas Zuokas came in fifth (9.13%), and the Farmer's Party – New Democracy bloc headed by the first prime minister of post-Soviet Lithuania, Kazimiera Prunskiene, rounded out the list of parties with representation in parliament (6.6%).
Lithuanian political scientists regard the present ruling coalition as the Laborites' most likely partner.
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Viktor Uspaskich: I Wouldn't Be the Worst Prime Minister
Viktor Uspaskich gave an interview with Kommersant right after the voting results were announced.
– Many people are predicting you'll become prime minister. Are you ready?
– I don't think I'd be the worst prime minister Lithuania has had in the last 14 years. We have quite a few qualified specialists in various fields in our party. The fact that they're not well known isn't a disaster. In Lithuania, people often become famous for the wrong reasons. But I'm not the one who decides whether or not I'll be prime minister. That's up to our party's council.
– How many people are in your council?
– About a hundred.
– There's a lot of talk today about with whom and with what political party you'll enter into a coalition…
– First of all, we have to wait for the final election results. On the other hand, we're prepared to work with all political parties that are willing to implement our program. But this is also for the party council to decide.
– Who would you not form a coalition with?
– I don't want to confirm anything; however, I'll tell you one thing: the possibility of a coalition with Rolandas Paksas causes the most controversy within the party itself. I repeat: this is not my opinion but the opinion of many party members.
Vladimir Vodo, Vilnius; Gennady Sysoev
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 12, 2004
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