wh y w e l o s t
66
Lithuania was not invited to start NATO entry negotiations with the first wave of Central
European applicants. Moreover, Conservative political and public-relations efforts man-
aged to turn European and Atlanticist integration into a part of the shared political agenda
which, by 2000, hardly any political force would dare to challenge openly. (It is important
to remember, for example, that there had been allusions to an attempt to withdraw Lithu-
ania from the processes of EU and NATO integration in the electoral platform of Paulaus-
kas, the populist contender for presidency in 1997.)
In terms of domestic policies, Kubilius’ stint as prime minister saved the state from de-
fault in the aftermath of the recession induced by the Russian economic crisis. “Tough
measures” and deep-going structural reforms started to yield positive results once the
recession was over. Kubilius also put in place the prerequisites for subsequent rapid eco-
nomic growth that was highly commended by the European Commission. The years of the
Conservative coalition government also saw the incipient widening of the middle class,
whereas Vagnorius’ public administration reforms brought about the emergence of a fairly
efficient and politically neutral civil service.
VI. AUTOPSY OF DEFEAT
These positive aspects notwithstanding, the Conservatives suffered a crushing defeat in
2000. A look at the statistical figures reveals its extent. In the 2000 parliamentary election
only 126,850 voters, or 4.8% of the total number of registered voters, voted for the Conser-
vatives. This represents a dramatic drop from 409,585 or 15.8% of total registered voters
that voted for the Conservatives in 1996.
By comparison, the increase of the Conservative/
Sąjūdis
vote from 1992 (when
Sąjūdis
lost) to 1996 (when the Conservatives won) was fairly insignificant – from 393,500 (15.4%)
in 1992 to 409,585 (15.8%) in 1996. Thus while the 1996 election was decided by the fail-
ure of left-wing voters to turn up to vote, rather than by an actual increase in the ranks of
Conservative supporters, the results of the 2000 election show an overwhelming down-
ward trend. It ought to be noted that heretofore Conservative Party voters, by contrast,
had constituted the most stable, loyal and, well, conservative electoral group.
Analysis shows that this radical decrease in the number of voters can be put down to
one of the three reasons: (1) disappointment in Conservative policies leading to voter
abstention; (2) blue-collar conservative defection – they followed in the wake of Paksas’
somewhat nomadic party career (most of this trend would eventually end up in one of
the more recent populist parties – Liberal Democrats or Uspaskih’s Labor Party); or (3)
right-of-center voters of more liberal persuasion, mostly the educated middle class and
entrepreneurs, switching to vote for the liberals once they emerged as a viable political
force with parliamentary prospects. Previously this cross-section of the electorate would
have voted Conservative, even if they did not share the Conservative social agenda, lest
their vote be “wasted” in case the Liberal Union did not reach the 5% parliamentary
threshold.
Redistribution of voter allegiances signified a twofold transformation of the political
scene. First of all, it heightened voter mobility in pursuit of increasingly more pragmatic
