Prime minister urges law change after Vilnius district council split

Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius has called for changes to Lithuania’s Local Self-Government Law after a party group in the Vilnius District Municipality Council split, with one faction declaring itself part of the opposition while agreeing to cooperate with the governing faction. LRT reported that Sinkevičius described the situation as unusual and said the law should be reviewed.

“We see the situation, and it is certainly strange, but I think you would agree that it is not entirely an anomaly,” Sinkevičius told lawmakers during government question time. He said similar cases had occurred in other municipalities, where part of a governing majority declared itself opposition.

The prime minister said the law should be reviewed more broadly, including its rules on relations between governing majorities and opposition groups. He called on the parliamentary Committee on State Governance and Municipalities to consider amendments.

Interior Minister Martynas Katelynas said the Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania-Christian Families Alliance (LLRA-KŠS) had taken advantage of gaps in the law. Amendments to the Local Self-Government Law are already being considered in parliament, he said, but it is impossible to regulate every situation. Katelynas urged municipal mayors and councillors not to exploit the process by declaring themselves opposition while remaining part of the governing majority.

Conservative MP Daiva Ulbinaitė, who raised the issue, said a political group with an actual majority on the council could take positions that the law allocates to the opposition.

Vilnius District Mayor Robertas Duchnevičius told BNS that the LLRA-KŠS representatives had split into two groups in an effort to weaken the mayor’s office before elections. The newly formed faction, called “STOP CORRUPTION,” said it had declared itself opposition to protest what it described as increasingly frequent corrupt decisions in the municipality and its companies.

At a council meeting on October 30, the LLRA-KŠS representatives divided into two factions of nine members each. The new faction declared itself opposition, while the other nine-member faction soon signed an agreement with it on close cooperation and joint meetings. The 31-seat council also includes seven Social Democrats and six members of a centre-right coalition made up of the Freedom Party, the Liberal Movement and the Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats.