Kazimira Prunskienė
Kazimiera (officially: Kazimira ) Danutė Prunskienė ( ) (born February 26, 1943 in Vasiuliškai near Švenčionys ) is a Lithuanian politician. She is the former Prime Minister of Lithuania and was against Valdas Adamkus in the 2004 presidential election .
biography
Youth and professional career in the Soviet Union
Prunskienė's father was killed by the NKVD (predecessor of the KGB ) in 1943 as a member of the Lithuanian uprising against the Soviet occupation that began in June 1940 , so that she grew up fatherless.
In 1965 she graduated from Vilnius University with her cum laude degree . Until 1986 she taught there. In 1971 she began her dissertation in the field of economics , and received her doctorate in 1986. 1982–83, 1986 and later she worked as a research assistant and Humboldt fellow in Germany . From 1965 to 1986 she taught at the Faculty of Economics at the Vilniaus universitetas and from 1996 to 2001 at the Vilniaus Gedimino technikos universitetas as a professor. From 1986 to 1988 she worked at the Lithuanian Institute of Agricultural Science.
Political career
Member of the independence movement and first female Prime Minister of Lithuania in 1990
Prunskienė got into active politics in 1988, as one of the initiators of the Sąjūdis independence movement . She was also involved in the signing of the deed to "restore the independence of a Lithuanian state". At the same time a member of the Communist Party, she became Deputy Prime Minister of the Lithuanian SSR in 1989.
1990-92 she was a member of the provisional National Council (which is now called Seimas again ). 1990–91 Prunskienė was the first female Prime Minister of the again independent Lithuania. On January 7, 1991, after fierce popular protests against massive increases in the price of staple foods, after only 10 months in office, her government submitted its resignation.
That was shortly before the bloody attacks by Russian (special) troops on January 13, 1991 ( Vilnius Blood Sunday ), at a time when the Soviet leadership had heated up the mood against the government of Lithuania. Prunskienė also had little support in parliament (opponent: Vytautas Landsbergis ), which accused her of being too soft on Moscow and in which the rumor repeatedly circulated that she had worked for the KGB.
In 1990, before independence was achieved, Prunskienė met the then ruling US President George Bush , British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher , German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and French President François Mitterrand . After these meetings, Mikhail Gorbachev was forced to speak out on the subject of Lithuania. In the same year she was honored with the Minerva Prize in Rome for successfully restoring Lithuania's independence .
Political career after 1991
In 1995, Prunskienė was the founder and chairwoman of the Lithuanian Women's Party , later the New Democracy - Women's Party ( Naujoji Demokratieija - Moterų partija ). In 2000 she was awarded the order of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Gediminas II and the Medal of Independence.
Since 2001, Prunskienė has been chairman of the Association of Peasants' Parties and New Democracy ( Valstiečių ir Naujosios democijos partijų sąjunga ), which was renamed the Lithuanian Peasants and People's Union ( Lietuvos valstiečių liaudininkų sąjunga ) in 2005 . In 2001 Ms. Prunskienė was awarded the German Great Federal Cross of Merit with a star for special merits .
In 2004 she ran for the presidential election . Surprisingly, with the second-best vote, she got into the runoff election against the high favorite Valdas Adamkus on June 27, the outcome of which was controversial until late in the evening. Ultimately, she received 47.8% of the vote with a low turnout of just over 50%. Many of the votes can be seen as a protest against Rolandas Paksas ' impeachment . Like Paksas, Prunskienė's party is one of the defenders of the common man's rights. It achieved its votes above all in the poor rural areas in the north and east of Lithuania, which were little affected by the economic boom in recent years, as well as among the Polish minority around Vilnius .
Similar to Paksas, during the election campaign there were various rumors that their candidacy was being supported and actively promoted by Russia in the background . Rumors of previous KGB activity also reappeared in 2003. Prunskienė, who has always vigorously denied these allegations, won here in court.
In the government coalition , which was formed in November 2004 by the Social Democrats , the Labor Party and the New Democracy, she received the Ministry of Agriculture . Even under the new Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas (from July 2006) she kept the Ministry of Agriculture until 2008.
In the parliamentary elections in October 2008, she missed her direct mandate from 2004 in the Moletai - Švenčionys district in the runoff election . In addition, her party LVLS failed the 5% hurdle and is no longer represented in the government. Politically weakened by these defeats, Prunskienė decided not to run for re-election as party leader at the party congress on March 7, 2009, after announcing a few days earlier that she would run again in the presidential elections (in May 2009). She also justified her waiver by wanting to be perceived as an independent candidate - in fact, her defeat had become foreseeable with the fact that board elections had even been scheduled at the party congress. Her rival, the founder of the first Lietuvos valstiečių partija , Ramūnas Karbauskis, succeeded as party leader .
See also
Web links
- Literature by and about Kazimira Prunskienė in the catalog of the German National Library
Individual evidence
- ^ Election of R. Karbauskis as the new party chairman of the LVLS, message on delfi.lt, February 28, 2009 (lit.)
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| - |
Prime Minister of Lithuania March 17, 1990-10. January 1991 |
Albertas Šimėnas |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Prunskienė, Kazimira |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Prunskienė, Kazimiera Danutė |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Lithuanian politician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 26, 1943 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Vasiuliškai , at Švenčionys |