Following the legislative elections won by the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party (LSDP) on October 27, the new Lithuanian government should take office in December. But already, the future coalition, which will be led by the vice-president of the Social Democrats, Gintautas Paluckas, is causing indignation in the Baltic state and abroad. At issue: the alliance of the LSPD with the Nemuno Ausra (Dawn of the River Niemen) party, a populist group whose leader, Remigijus Zemaaititis, is accused of anti-Semitism.
During the electoral campaign, the social democratic president, Vilija Blinkeviciute, pledged not to cooperate with this party with its anti-system discourse, created in November 2023. Monday, November 11, however, Mr. Paluckas signed a coalition agreement with the Union of Democrats for Lithuania (center left) and Nemuno Ausra, after negotiations with the Union of Lithuanian Peasants and Greens (center right) failed.
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Aged 42, Remigijus Zemaitaitis, a former deputy of the Freedom and Justice party (liberal conservative), is currently on trial by a Vilnius court for anti-Semitism. In a message posted on his Facebook account, in May 2023, he said he understood “the anger [et] hatred against the Jews and their nation” with regard to the policy pursued by Israel. A month later, he claimed – without any evidence – that the massacre committed by the Nazis in 1944, in the Lithuanian village of Pirciupiai, was in fact the work of the “Lithuanian Jews and Russians”.
“An error”, judges the president
Excluded from his party, he resigned from Parliament to avoid impeachment proceedings, which would have made him ineligible. In April 2024, the country's supreme court ruled that Mr. Zemaaititis had indeed “broke his oath of office and grossly violated the constitution”. Which did not prevent him from running in the presidential election, a month later, and winning 9.28% of the votes in the first round. In the legislative elections, he obtained 15% of the votes.
If Mr. Zemaitaitis is not expected to obtain a ministerial portfolio, his party's participation in the next government is causing many reactions. In Lithuania, President Gitanas Nauseda (independent) sees this “an error”. He has already indicated that he would oppose the appointment of ministers belonging to Nemuno Ausra, but that he could consider in government “technocrats” presented by the party.
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