Lietuvos centro sąjunga
The Lietuvos centro sąjunga ( LCS , literally German: Union of the Center of Lithuania , Lithuanian Center Union ) was a liberal political party in Lithuania .
The beginnings of the party lay in the “liberal bloc” of the Sąjūdis faction in the constitution-making assembly, which had been determined in the first free elections of the Soviet Union in February 1990. Before the upcoming first elections in the again independent Lithuania in October 1992, the Lithuanian centrist movement (lit. Lietuvos centristų judėjimas ) formed from the “liberal bloc” . She was not very successful in the elections and could only two MPs as direct mandatories to Parliament delegate. These were the chairman Romualdas Ozolas (directly elected in Šiauliai ) and Egidijus Bičkauskas (elected in Vilnius ).
In 1993, due to the new Lithuanian party law, it was converted into a political party and renamed Lietuvos centro sąjunga . Ozolas remained chairman, Bičkauskas became chairman of the party executive committee.
The next parliamentary elections in October 1996 were very successful for LCS. With 8.2% of the valid votes, the LCS became the fourth strongest force in the then very fragmented party landscape. It provided 14 MPs (including 5 direct seats) and took part in the formation of a center-right coalition under Prime Minister Gediminas Vagnorius of the Conservatives . Algis Čaplikas was the minister for construction and the environment until the break of the coalition in May 1999. After the break of the coalition, the centrists tolerated the following minority governments of Rolandas Paksas and Andrius Kubilius .
The parliamentary elections in October 2000 brought a heavy defeat for the LCS, which with 2.9% of the vote clearly missed the required 5% hurdle. Only one direct mandate could be won directly (Gintaras Šileikis). The defeat was all the more painful as the LCS had become the fourth strongest party in the local elections in March 2000 with 173 seats (strongholds of Varėna , Kazlų Rūda , Elektrėnai , Šakiai and Druskininkai ). These results were confirmed in the local elections in 2002 (156 seats).
In order to avoid a fate similar to 2000 before the parliamentary elections in 2004, negotiations with other liberal parties about a merger took place after the local elections in 2002. This was decided in May 2003 at a large unification congress. The LCS, the Liberal Union (LLS) and the Modern Christian Democrats (MKDS) merged to form what is now the Liberal and Central Union (LiCS).
Spin-off of Lietuvos centro partija
Some of the LCS members (including party founder Romualdas Ozolas) turned against the turn to economic liberalism associated with the merger with the LLS and founded the Nacionalinė centro partija (NCP; German National Center Party ) on May 1, 2003 . It was renamed on May 21, 2005 in Lietuvos centro partija (LCP; German Lithuanian Center Party ). The party leader was initially Romualdas Ozolas; he was replaced in October 2007 by Arūnas Grumadas .
The party has not played a significant role in the country's political life since it was founded in May 2003. Participation in the 2004 and 2008 parliamentary elections yielded 0.5 and 0.7% of the vote, respectively. In the 2007 local elections, the party won 18 seats, 13 of them in the Varėna district alone , which it governs with a narrow absolute majority.
For the European elections in 2009 , the LCP was able to present the well-known politician Ona Juknevičienė , who had campaigned against the partial privatization of the state energy supplier Lietuvos energija , as the list leader and received a remarkable 3.1% of the valid votes.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Nationwide results of local elections 2000 ( Memento of the original from December 24, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Nationwide results of local elections 2002 ( Memento of the original from August 5, 2009 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.
- ↑ centropartija.lt ( Memento of the original from December 10, 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.
- ↑ centropartija.lt ( Memento of the original from December 10, 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.
- ↑ Varėna District Council
- ^ Result of the 2009 European elections in Lithuania
