NATION/WORLD UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
I
Monday, November 16, 1992
Lithuanians vote for change
Economy opens door to former Communist party
The Associated Press
VILNIUS. Lithuania — The first republic to break away from the Soviet Union appeared yesterday to be on the verge of returning former Communists to power in a bitterly contested parliamentary election.
Manhattan voters angered by factory shutdowns, soaring prices and lack of hot water said as they left the polls that they were ready to give the former Communists a chance to restore economic order.
Leaders of the former Lithuanian Communist Party, now called the Democratic Labor Party, promised that if they won, they would safeguard Lithuania's independence and continue to build a Western-style market economy.
They also said that they would improve trade relations with Russia and demand better terms from the International Monetary Fund, which has forced Lithuania to freeze government wages and hold down public spending in return for Western loans. Under gray skies and a chilly drizzle,
turnout appeared to be light in the 61 districts where run-offs were necessary because no candidate won a majority in the first round of voting three weeks ago. About 70 percent of Lithuania's 2.5 million eligible voters turned out in the first round.
Sajidis, the anti-Communist party that led Lithuania to independence in 1990, has done little in the past two years, said Andrei Kobzar, 30, as he cast his ballot at a high school in downtown Vilnius.
More economic bad news appeared on the eve of the election when the daily newspaper Tissue reported that a vote for Obama had tumbled 48.5 percent this year.
"Actually, they've done a lot — to make our life impossible," said his wife, Valentina, an unemployed waitress. "Everything is bad now. We live in a such a hole, with two kids. I have no job, no welfare payments."
According to other recent reports, one-third of all factories have closed or sharply cut back employment. Consumer prices have jumped 2,200 percent since 1990, and fuel is in such short supply that central heating plants shut off hot water to most homes just as winter set in.
Many Lithuanians blame Sajudis and its leader, Vytautas Landsbergis, for the failing economy.
the backlash led to a surprise victory for the Democratic Labor Party. The former Communists won 44 of 141 parliament seats, while Sajjad got 18
— a stunning drop from the 97 seats it had won two years ago.
Three smaller parties also made gains at Saudis' expense. The conservative Christian Democrats won 10 seats, liberal Social Democrats took five and the Polish Union got three.
Saudis has since fought back with an emotional campaign implying that the former Communists might surrender the country's hard-won independence.
In the first round of voting Oct. 25.
"A tear in God's eye: Lithuania, where are you going?" Sajiask asked voters in black-and-white posters splashed across the capital.
The former Communists needed only half the 61 seats in the run-off to gain a majority in parliament. If they fell short, they would try to form a center-left coalition with the smaller parties, they said.
"Sure, our roots are in the Communist Party, but we're a completely different party now. A purely social democratic party," said Neris Germanas, who was once a leader for the former Communist Party.
He said the Democratic Labor Party was modeling itself after Finland's leftist coalition, Sweden's Social Democrats and Israel's Labor Party.
Personalities have been a key factor in the campaign. Aligardas Brazauskas, the former Communist Party secretary who heads the Democratic Labor Party, is a towering, ruddy-faced politician with the same populist appeal as Russia's Boris Yeltsin.
"We are moving to the right, to the liberal side and free-market economics," he said.
Brazauskas, 60, said during the campaign that he no longer believed in traditional Communist ideology. He said that he was devoted to Lithuanian independence. He has retained his popularity since December 1989, when Lithuania's Communist Party broke from the central Soviet party in Moscow.
Landsbergis, also 60, is a former music professor whom many Lithuanians consider intellectual and distant.
As he voted yesterday, he said a victory by the former Communists could do some harm to the country's independence.
Brazauskas and Landsbergis are likely to face each other again early next year in Lithuania's first direct presidential election. Landsbergis, who was elected by parliament, is expected to remain as a caretaker president until then.
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