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relations”. 383 When the Lithuanian People’s Party joined the list of candidates of
the EAP for the 2012 parliamentary elections, the leader of United Russia, Boris
Gryzlov, stated that now their partners in Lithuania “are part of the Government
coalition”, 384 although he failed to mention that no members of the Lithuanian
People’s Party on this list were elected to parliament.
The other Russian speakers’ party, the Union of Russians in Lithuania, chose to
cooperate with Viktor Uspaskich’s Labour Party, and in 2012 two members of
this party were elected to parliament on the Labour Party electoral list. The
Labour Party, and especially its leader, has declared good relations and close ties
with Russia to be a priority ever since the party was established at the end of
2003. Uspaskich’s business experience includes joint gas projects with Gazprom
and he brought this expericence into a political asset – the Labour party, which
he founded. The party performed very well in the 2004 and 2012 parliamentary
elections, and is now part of the Coalition Government.
A party that does not even try to conceal its ties with Russia, but on the contrary
makes its pro-Kremlin stance deliberately very public, is the Social People’s
Front Party, headed by Algirdas Paleckis. He participates actively in the
Kremlin’s organized network of so-called Anti-Fascist Committees in the Baltic
states. Algirdas Paleckis has recently become very active in propagating the
conspiracy theory transmitted by Russian television channels that during the
events of January 1991, the Sąjūdis people started shooting at their own – not the
Soviet soldiers. 385 The Estonian authorities have declared Algirdas Paleckis
persona non grata. 386
In 2007, the Civic Society Institute conducted a public opinion survey in
Lithuania that demonstrated that political parties such as the Labour Party and
the Union of Lithuanian Peasants and Peoples had the biggest pro-Russian and
pro-Soviet electoral sentiment among the Lithuanian population. 387 It is therefore
quite logical that some Russian-speakers’ parties chose to join them and later,
when the Union of Lithuanian Peasants and Peoples was reorganized, to increase
their cooperation with the Labour Party. Another Russian-speakers’ party – the
Russian Alliance – chose to join the ranks of the EAP, which has demonstrated
steady electoral performance and good potential for political mobilization over
383 See “Putin’s party fellow Prunskiene is unable to find political support in Lithuania”, Lithuanian
Tribune (2011-10-09), http://www.lithuaniatribune.com/8466/putins-party-fellow-prunskiene-isunable-to-find-political-support-in-lithuania-20118466/.
384 See “Gryzlov pozdravil s yubileyem lidera Narodnoy Partii Litvy” (2013-02-06),
385 See “Algirdas Paleckis found guilty of denying Soviet aggression”, 15min.lt (2012-06-12),
http://www.15min.lt/en/article/in-lithuania/algirdas-paleckis-found-guilty-of-denying-sovietaggression-525-225836.
386 See “Frontas Party members refused entry to Estonia”, Lithuanian Tribune (2010-04-21),
http://www.lithuaniatribune.com/1550/frontas-party-members-refused-entry-to-estonia-20101550/.
387 See Ramonaitė, A., Maliukevičius N., Degutis, M.(2007): op. cit.
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