Paksas, Rolandas

▪ 2004

      The success of Rolandas Paksas, the leader of the new populist Liberal Democratic Party, in winning the presidency of Lithuania in the second round of elections on Jan. 5, 2003, came as a surprise to many. All the major parties had backed the incumbent, the American-Lithuanian Valdas Adamkus, who symbolized the unity and the stability of the country and campaigned on his success in gaining Lithuania's integration into NATO and the European Union. Paksas, on the other hand, promised radical changes and a rise in living standards, particularly for less-fortunate people, and he appealed aggressively to younger voters, winning 54.7% of votes in a comparatively low 52.6% turnout. Still, he found himself in deep trouble at year's end.

      Paksas was born on June 10, 1956, in Telsiai, northwestern Lithuania. His father was a railway clerk and later worked in the wholesale-grain trade. His mother's family was deported to Siberia but escaped Soviet concentration camps, and she worked as a nurse. Paksas graduated from Vilnius Gediminas Technical University as a civil engineer in 1979 and from the Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) Academy of Civil Aviation as an engineer-pilot in 1984. He worked as a pilot instructor and headed a flying club in Vilnius. In 1992 he founded the Restako construction company.

      Paksas joined the conservative Homeland Union and won a seat in the Vilnius city council in 1997. He was elected mayor of the capital two years later and, after the resignation of Prime Minister Gediminas Vagnorius in 1999, succeeded him in office. Paksas resigned a scant five and a half months later, however, after an emotional address in which he declined to support a proposal to invite American investment in Mazeikiu Nafta, Lithuania's giant oil company. Suddenly persona non grata to the conservatives, Paksas joined a small liberal party. He worked as an adviser to President Adamkus, was reelected mayor of Vilnius, and won a seat in the Seimas (parliament). From October 2000 to June 2001 he served a second time as prime minister, but after the split of the coalition of Liberals and Social-Liberals, he resigned, remaining a member of the Parliamentary Economic Committee. Paksas founded the Liberal Democratic Party in March 2002 and under its banner became president on Feb. 26, 2003.

      Paksas's short political career had been characterized by flexibility. Although he began as a communist, he became prominent in conservative circles and later emerged as a leader of the Liberals and the Liberal-Democrats. He was determined and enthusiastic on the stump, and he seemed to enjoy better relations with Russia, Lithuania's giant neighbour, than had his predecessors. On the other hand, his presidency was marred by allegations that he had ties to organized crime. At the end of 2003, there were calls for his impeachment after Lithuania's highest court ruled that Paksas had violated the country's constitution.

Darius Furmonavičius

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