Lietuvių tautininkų sąjunga

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The Lietuvių tautininkų sąjunga ( LTS , literally German: Union of Lithuanian Nationalists ) was a conservative nationalist political party in Lithuania .

First Republic (1924–1940)

The designation "tautininkai" ("Nationalists" or "Völkische") and the later party name go back to the party of the same name in the First Republic , in whose tradition today's LTS sees itself. The LTS of the First Republic emerged as the successor to the People's Progressive Party (Lithuanian Tautos pažangos partija ), which merged in August 1924 with the Economic and Political Association of Agricultural Workers (Lithuanian Ekonominės ir politinės žemdirbių sąjunga ). The most important representative of the party was Antanas Smetona , who led the Progress Party from 1920 to 1924 and was chairman of the LTS from 1925 to 1926.

The LTS was the political representative of the national-conservative-minded forces, which relied on a strong army and a strong leader. All violence should come from the people and the will of the people should be expressed through a leader. In contrast to the Christian Democrats , they were less closely connected to the Catholic Church and more oriented towards traditional pre-Christian folk culture.

Together with the Christian Democrats, the nationalists organized the overthrow in parliament in December 1926 and elected Smetona as the new president , while his party comrade Augustinas Voldemaras was appointed prime minister. After the dissolution of parliament in April 1927 and the departure of the Christian Democrats from the coalition, the authoritarian ruling President Smetona filled all offices with party members from the LTS. After the Communists came to power , the LTS was banned on June 19, 1940.

Since 1989

With the democratic opening of the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev , the parties of the First Republic began to reorganize in Lithuania. A first step in the revitalization of the LTS was a letter of intent to re-establish the LTS in March 1989, which was then registered as a political party on February 23, 1990, shortly after the elections to the Supreme Soviet of Lithuania. In August 1990, the program and statutes were adopted at the first party meeting and on December 29, 1990, 12 members of the Seimas , who had been elected to parliament as candidates for the Sąjūdis independence movement , formed the independent faction of the "Völkische".

Already at the end of 1991 there was a split in the LTS parliamentary group, with almost half of the MPs forming the parliamentary group in January 1992 and the party of the People's Progressive Party (see above) in May of the same year . In the first parliamentary elections of the again independent Lithuania in October 1992, the LTS ran under its name together with the Independence Party (Lithuanian Nepriklausomybės partija ) and the Union of Farmers of Lithuania (Lithuanian Lietuvos ukininkų sąjunga ), but only won just under 2% of the votes unite. She clearly missed the 5% hurdle and received only 4 seats, which she was able to win as direct mandates.

For the following parliamentary elections in 1996 , the "Tautininkai" formed a list connection with the Democratic Party . However, together they only came to just over 2%, leaving only a direct mandate for LTS.

The following local and state elections always ended with results for the LTS: they never received more than 1.2% and could no longer win a direct mandate in the Seimas. Only the city of Akmenė was ruled by a LTS mayor from 1997 to 2007.

Based on the predecessor party of the First Republic, the LTS sees itself as the guardian of the Lithuanian language and culture as well as of Lithuanian independence even after its re-establishment. It stands for a free market economy and promotes independent entrepreneurship, on the other hand it campaigns for strong state health care and an increase in pensions. In summer 2005 she took part in an (unsuccessful) initiative for a referendum against the possible introduction of the euro .

In December 2007 the decision was made to join the Conservatives of the Fatherland League. This decision was taken on March 11, 2008, Lithuania's national holiday for regaining independence. Since then, the "Tautininkai" have functioned as a faction of the same name within the Fatherland League. Two of its members were elected to parliament in the general election in October 2008 : the party's last leader, Gintaras Songaila, and Kazimieras Uoka.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. vrk.lt
  2. lrs.lt ( Memento of the original from October 31, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ( MS Word ; 37 kB) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www3.lrs.lt