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The LDLP Faction in the Lithuanian Seimas, 1992–1996*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Terry D. Clark ,
Stacy J. Holscher  and
Lisa A. Hyland
Terry D. Clark
Affiliation:
Political Science at Creighton University, U.S.A.
Stacy J. Holscher
Affiliation:
Creighton University, U.S.A.
Lisa A. Hyland
Affiliation:
Energy and National Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Study, U.S.A.
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Extract

In the 1992 elections to the national legislature, Lithuania became the first country in Eastern Europe to return its former communist party to power. Headed by Algirdas Brazauskas, the former First Secretary who had led the party in its split from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in December 1990, the party had rejected the Soviet past and renamed itself the Lithuanian Democratic Labor Party (LDLP). Declaring itself a social-democratic party, the LDLP supported democracy and a free market “with a human face.” In the 1992 elections the LDLP campaigned as a party of experienced, competent administrators capable of managing the reforms in such a way as to lessen their social impact. As a result the party won a resounding victory in the elections of that year to the national legislature, winning 73 of the 141 seats in the Seimas.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , June 1999 , pp. 227 - 246
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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References

Notes

1. A number of scholars have noted the greater stability within single-party, majority factions than in multiparty coalitions: Maurice Duverger, Political Parties: Their Organization and Activities in the Modern State (New York: John Wiley, 1967); Jean Blondel, “Party Systems and Patterns of Government in Modern Democracies,” Canadian Journal of Political Science, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1968, pp. 180–203; Robert Dahl, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1971).Google Scholar

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19. For a description of this attempt, see Saulius Girnius, “Political Turmoil in Lithuania,” Transition, Vol. 3, No. 27, 1994, pp. 18–21.Google Scholar

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21. We argue that these specific provisions are far more prejudicial to the stability of the Lithuanian political system than the general tension inherent in the relationship between the President and Seimas or the President and the Prime Minister identified in L. Talat-Kelpsa, “Pusiau prezidentismo link” and “Prezidentas ir parlamentas.”Google Scholar

22. L. Talat-Kelpsa, in “Pusiau prezidentismo link” and “Prezidentas ir parlamentas,” argues that the Lithuanian President has indeed adapted the French practice in instances of cohabitation.Google Scholar