Translated material
Premier from the party school
Lithuania will be ruled by a minority cabinet
Yesterday, the Lithuanian Seimas approved 54-year-old Gediminas Kirkilas as Prime Minister of the interim Minister of Defense of the Region. The representative of the Social Democrats was supported by 85 deputies, 13 voted against. Within 15 days, the new prime minister must form a government and submit it to President Valdas Adamkus for approval. Kirkilas has already stated that he is ready to leave Foreign Minister Antanas Valionis, who takes a tough position towards Russia, in his post.The government crisis in Lithuania erupted at the end of May, when five ministers from the Labor Party left the government. On May 31, Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas submitted his resignation. President Adamkus proposed 52-year-old Finance Minister Zygmantas Balcytis to deputies as the new head of the cabinet, but parliament rejected this candidacy during a vote on June 20.
Kirkilas was nominated by the center-left bloc, which includes the Social Democratic Party (SDP), the Popular Peasant Party, the Civil Democracy Party and the Union of Liberal Centrists. Together they control 53 seats out of 141 in the Sejm. This means that for the first time in the history of independent Lithuania, a minority government will be in power. Kirkilas's candidacy was approved thanks to an agreement with the conservatives, who refused to participate in the vote. An important role was played by the votes of deputies from the Labor Party, which was not included in the coalition, but supported the candidate.
On the eve of the vote, representatives of the Labor Party questioned the candidate's education. Kirkilas graduated from the Vilnius Higher Party School, but back in 1996, the Seimas adopted the law “On the non-recognition of diplomas from higher party schools.” In 2004, Kirkilas completed his master's degree at the International School of Entrepreneurship at Vilnius University. Trudoviks questioned the legality of his admission to a master's program without a bachelor's degree. But yesterday morning an explanation came from Vilnius University that the internal rules for admission to the institution under its jurisdiction do not prohibit admission with a Soviet diploma of party education, as long as the applicant passes the exams.
Gediminas Kirkilas entered the HPS in 1974 after dropping out of the pedagogical institute, where he studied philology. Having started his career as an instructor at the district committee, he rose to the rank of assistant to the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Lithuania, Algirdas Brazauskas. After the transformation of the Communist Party into the SDP, he became its deputy chairman. Since 1992, he has been permanently elected to the Seimas on the party list.
Kirkilas is well known in Russia due to the fact that he headed the parliamentary committee on foreign affairs, and in 2002-2004 he was the presidential plenipotentiary in negotiations with Russia on transit through the Kaliningrad region. His moderate position made it possible to reach an agreement that, in principle, suits both sides.
Having received the portfolio of Minister of Defense in the Brazauskas cabinet in December 2004, Kirkilas showed himself to be a strong supporter of supporting US and NATO military operations in hot spots; he has repeatedly visited Afghanistan and Iraq, where Lithuanian military contingents are stationed.