wh y w e l o s t
54
Two facts are to be noted about this election, however. First, it is important to keep in
mind that most of the LDDP electorate, despite its failure to vote, retained its ex-Com-
munist sympathies (as well as, more importantly, its anti-Conservative animus). Secondly,
one LDDP political figure to pass unscathed through the reversal of the ex-Communist
political fortunes was Algirdas Brazauskas, whose reputation remained (and continues to
be) unsinkable, despite widely reputed shady deals, frequent inefficiency and incompe-
tence and a penchant for malapropisms and the simplistic. The latter, alongside with in-
stinctive political cunning, the jargon-like speech patterns of a typical Soviet-era
apparat-
chik
, unfeigned comprehension of simple people’s concerns (though rarely the capability
to address them) and (literally) towering earthy solidity combined to produce a father-like
figure that represented all that was good about the Soviet era.
By contrast, the leader of the Conservatives, Vytautas Landsbergis, is frequently perceived
and portrayed as overly intellectual, just a puny “musician” with a goatee (he is, in fact, a
professor of music), far removed from the people’s concerns and interests. His principled
insistence on the moral dimension of politics was often caricatured as abstract idealism
and emotional posturing, whereas a tough approach to relations with Russia (which in fact
yielded excellent results) was seen as dogmatic, hard-line, dangerous nationalism. Lands-
bergis’ use of history as point of reference for today’s politics earned him admiration from
those who had suffered from the Russian occupation and the Soviet regime, mostly elderly
people, but it estranged the emerging younger generation of pragmatically-minded pro-
fessionals to whom the Soviet era was a bygone age, better left alone and forgotten. Alone
among the political figures of the 1990s, Landsbergis outgrew his direct political influence
to become a symbol of those ideals for which he stood: Lithuanian independence, restitu-
tion of historical justice and morality in politics.
His second-in-command, Gediminas Vagnorius, who headed the conservative coalition
government from 1996-1999 represents, on the other hand, a very different profile. This
initially gray and unfamiliar political figure, “an economist with ideas,” in 1993-1996 went
on to become the Conservative party’s
eminence
grise
, thus creating the phenomenon of
“two-headed eagle” in the party: “idealistic” Landsbergis versus “pragmatic” Vagnorius.
The latter years of the Vagnorius government, however, were marred by corruption al-
legations and unsavory struggle for influence within the party. After his demise, he disap-
peared into the woodwork. Two subsequent Conservative prime ministers were Rolandas
Paksas (1999) and Andrius Kubilius (1999-2000).
Paksas, an erstwhile stunt-pilot with a proclivity for bursting into tears and a sulky teenager’s
charm, has earned his place in history as the first-ever European president to be successfully
removed by impeachment (in 2004, on the charges of corruption and betrayal of the na-
tional interest). His brief stint as a Conservative prime minister was characterized by failure
to address any relevant issues while maintaining high popularity ratings. Never more than
an opportunistic conservative, he went on to become a member of the Liberal Union and a
liberal prime minister (2000-2001). Following resignation from the latter position, Paksas
founded the populist Liberal Democratic Party which was to become one of the main threats
to Lithuania’s democratic constitutional order and its pro-Western commitments.
Andrius Kubilius, a former physicist and one of the founding fathers of the Conservative
Party, distinguished himself through his resolute measures, firm grasp of domestic policy
