ISSN: 2560-1601

Vol. 19, No. 1 (LT)

June 2019

Lithuania political briefing: ’s presidential elections won by the party-independent candidate economist Gitanas Nausėda Linas Eriksonas

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Lithuania’s presidential elections won by the party-independent candidate economist Gitanas Nausėda

On 3 June Lithuania’s Central Electoral Committee confirmed the final presidential election results which show that economist Gitanas Nausėda won a landslide victory against his opponent, economist Ingrida Šimonytė. According to the official figures, in the second round of elections (which were held on May 26) 65.68% of the registered Lithuanian voters voted for Nausėda, an independent candidate, while only 33.04% cast their votes for Ingrida Šimonytė, the Member of Parliament, who was nominated by the Conservatives (the – Lithuanian Christian Democrats) who are in opposition to the government. The voter turnout during the presidential runoff was 53.88% which was only slightly lower than during the first round on May 12 but higher than during the presidential runoff during the previous elections in 2014 (47,37%). The new president will be sworn into office on 12 July.

Below is a brief overview of the previous presidencies and the discussion regarding the political leadership of the contestant in the presidential runoffs this year, including the consideration about the main factors which might have contributed to the landslide victory of the non-party candidate over the party candidate.

Since the restoration of independence in 1990, the presidential were held seven times. During the 1990s the president’s office was held for one term (1993-1998) by the late , the last leader of the Communist Party of Lithuania (the first President of independent Lithuania), and then by the former US official Valdas Adamkus who came back from emigration to stand for elections, effectively becoming the first American to win a president’s office in .

After Adamkus’ first term in office (1998-2002), the presidential elections in 2002 were won by who was impeached on numerous counts in 2004. The elections that were held thereafter were again won by President Valdas Adamkus who served the second term in office until 2009. Two subsequent elections confirmed the victory for the former EU Commissioner for financial programming and the former Minister of Finance Dalia Grybauskaitė who had very high approval rates in the polls for two consecutive terms.

Thus, when the turn came to elect a successor to Grybauskaitė’s popular presidency, the choice in the second round of the presidential elections had to be made between two center-

1 right candidates, both economists, namely, Gitanas Nausėda and Ingrida Šimonytė. Gitanas Nausėda was running an independent campaign without the support of any parties (neither the governing parties nor the opposition parties lent support to him in the first round) while Ingrida Šimonytė was nominated by the Conservative party and was officially promoted as the candidate of the Conservative opposition. Though interestingly enough, being the member of the Conservative faction in the Parliament, Šimonytė formally was not a member of the party.

Politically she adhered to the neoliberal views in economics and the outspokenly liberal views as related to identity politics. Nausėda exposed a more Keynesian approach to political economy and spoke about the need to address social inequality, which could be seen as being close to the ideas of so-called compassionate conservatism, an American political philosophy that stresses using traditionally conservative approaches and concepts in order to improve the general welfare of society. However, what made the candidates differently was not so much their political views (which, though differing on certain aspects, could be regarded as firmly entrenched in the center-right part of the political spectrum) as their cultivated styles of leadership.

Political leadership within a country is influenced by institutions, political elites, and voters as well as interactions between them. It works best when there is a rapport between all three within a given political environment.

Šimonytė’s style of campaigning was straightforward, giving the preference to a direct talk and the get-down-to-business approach which would be typical of the new generation of the European leaders with a more technocratic background such as ’s President Emmanuel Macron. According to the six types of leadership as described by Daniel Coleman in his typology which is widely recognized, Šimonytė’s type of leadership could be characterized mainly as authoritative, which mobilizes people towards the vision and works especially well, if a new vision or a new direction is required. However, there was a clear mismatch between this style and the situation at hand as Šimonytė adhered to the existing direction set by the outgoing president and was not articulating the urgency of change (even as regarding to the current government).

Nausėda’s twenty-years’ track record in working as a senior analyst at the SEB Bankas in and, prior to that, in the central bank of Lithuania, made him more of a reflective type of personality, less outspoken and indeed less straight taking, while relying on a reflection and a consensus-building rather than an immediate action. This style of leadership is characteristic of the European presidents who came to power without previously holding public

2 positions in the countries where the presidential powers are vested with less power than in Lithuania and where the president doesn’t have to play such a vital role in the political system of checks and balances as in Lithuania. According to Goleman’s typology, it is a democratic leadership which forges consensus through participation and works successfully, if there is a need to build buy-in or in consensus, or to get input from valuable team members. This worked very well for Nausėda during the first round when building a campaign team from different team members and then, during the second round, when negotiating with different political parties for support.

Most importantly, in shaping his public persona Nausėda aligned himself closely with the leadership style of the former President Valdas Adamkus and declared on numerous occasions that he would be following the political style of Adamkus who had entered the Lithuanian politics and won the presidential elections 20 years ago having no prior experience of being involved in the day-to-day politics in the country. Adamkus’ main experience was in serving the US Environmental Protection Agency and coordinating the cultural and societal activities of the Lithuania diaspora in the US, mostly in . In 1981 Adamkus was appointed a regional administrator by President Ronald (whose election campaign was supported by the majority of the Lithuanian diaspora in the US) and was responsible for all air, water, hazardous waste, and other pollution control programs in the US Midwest, covering the states of Illinois, , , , , and . In 1985 President Reagan presented him with the Distinguished Executive Presidential Rank Award – the highest honour that can be bestowed upon a civil servant. Importantly, during the final public debates, Nausėda explicitly mentioned that Roland Reagan is one of the examples that he has been inspired to follow. ‘s style of leadership (which Goleman characterizes as a visionary or authoritative) can be detected in Nausėda‘s discourse, yet rhetorically during the second round of elections Nausėda was projecting the leadership akin to the affiliative style of leadership, which concentrates on harmony and builds emotional bonds and works well, when people face difficult circumstances. This matched well with the situation prior to the second round when the uncertainty about who would form a government emerged. Thus, by integrating different leadership styles in his public appearances Nausėda emerged as a new leader.

Two explanations could be made as concerning the factors which led to the landslide victory of Nausėda, namely, the political and the socio-cultural. From the political perspective, Nausėda was free of the support from any parties which have been weakened due to various cases of corruption (some of which are still under investigation) and could be seen as the candidate which occupies the position above the existing political currents. Regarding the

3 domestic issues, he expressed consideration for the less privileged and economically deprived parts of society, while on the foreign affairs he was less ideological in considering countries with whom to initiate a dialogue. For example, he saw the merits of pursuing pragmatic relations with China. From the socio-cultural perspective, Nausėda has spoken on a number of occasions about family values as the cornerstone of stone which appealed to the voters in the country and, importantly, to the which showed sympathy for Nausėda. Overall, Nausėda cut a figure which was more close to an average Lithuanian voter’s perception of who could represent the majority of the nation. The more straightforward approach by Šimonytė which can be more characteristic of the countries with a strong presidentship did not found ground, except the party supporters of the Conservatives and the center-right Liberals in opposition.

When reflecting upon his victory the president-elect Gitanas Nausėda expressed in his congratulatory speech on the late evening of May 26, when the results from the second round of the elections came in, the following ideas which are characteristic of affiliative leadership: “I hope that together with other state institutions, we will manage to find that common ground toward achieving one goal, which is making life in Lithuania better, making everyone in Lithuania feel better, ensuring that there is more mutual respect in Lithuania and less bullying and that the old and the young, the better off and the worse off, someone who lives on the periphery and someone who lives in the center or the capital get along well with each other”.

President Grybauskaitė endorsed the president-elect, yet during her final annual State of the Nation address delivered in the Parliament on June 11 she reprimanded that "even though some politicians still dream about a silent and non-objecting president who does no obstruct their "work", people want to have a leader who protects their interests, constitutional rights, and human values” which indicated her encouragement for the new president to adopt the leadership style which is close to the outgoing president.

What leadership style the president-elect adopts for carrying out his constitutional duties when sworn into office on 12 July remains to be seen, yet if he is faithful to the political style of his role-model President Reagan, one might expect his presidency to be more about visions and new directions than about business-as-usual. This has been already been indicated by the repeated calls by the president-elect that his main task would be to rally people and support the government in addressing inequality and building a welfare state.

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References:

1. The Central Electoral Commission of the Republic of Lithuania; https://www.vrk.lt/en/2019-prezidento/rezultatai 2. BNS, LRT.lt, “Gitanas Nausėda elected the new president of Lithuania“, 27 May 2019, https://www.lrt.lt/naujienos/news-in- english/19/1063034/gitanas-nauseda-elected-new-president-of-lithuania 3. BNS, “President-elect Nauseda: high inequality poses a threat to social peace”, 12 June 2019, https://en.delfi.lt/business/president-elect-nauseda-high- inequality-poses-threat-to-social-peace.d?id=81441167 4. Milena Drzewiecka and Wojciech Cwalina, “What political leadership styles do we prefer? Cross-cultural study in Goleman's typology of leadership”, in SCIECONF – Proceedings in Scientific Conference 2 (2014), pp. 61-166. 5. President of the Republic of Lithuania, “State of the Nation Address by H.E. Dalia Grybauskaitė, President of the Republic of Lithuania”, https://www.lrp.lt/en/press-centre/press-releases/state-of-the-nation-address-by-h.e.- dalia-grybauskaite-president-of-the-republic-of-lithuania/32609

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