The Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union (Lithuanian: Lietuvos valstiečių ir žaliųjų sąjunga, LVŽS)[nb 1] is a green-conservative[1] and agrarian[16]political party in Lithuania led by Ramūnas Karbauskis. The party is considered one of the main representatives of the left wing of Lithuanian politics.[10] Lithuanian journalist Virgis Valentinavičius described the party as "the mixture of the extreme left in economic matters and the extreme right in some social issues, all spiced up with an anti-establishment rhetoric of radical change".[2]
Following the 2020 parliamentary election, the LVŽS has been in opposition to the Šimonytė Cabinet. The party's two MEPs sit in the Greens–European Free Alliance group in the European Parliament. Founded in 2001 as the Lithuanian Peasant Popular Union, (Lithuanian: Lietuvos valstiečių liaudininkų sąjunga, LVLS), the party's symbol since 2012 has been the white stork.
In February 2006, the Peasants and New Democratic Party Union led by Lithuanian politician Kazimiera Prunskienė chose to rename itself the Lithuanian Peasant Popular Union (after the pre-war Lithuanian Popular Peasants' Union).
In 2008 parliamentary election the party felt below 5 per cent threshold and was left with three members, who were elected in single-member constituencies.
Opposition and leading force in the government (2009–2020)
In 2009 Kazimira Prunskienė left the party and founded the party of her own (Lithuanian People's Party).[23] Although the party was minor one, it gained some influence in 2010, when it supported the Homeland Union-led government. The Lithuanian Peasants Popular Union changed its name to the Lithuanian Peasants and Greens Union in January 2012.
The party emerged as a dark horse in the electoral race in the spring of 2016. The rise of support was attributed to the popularity of Karbauskis, who had been active in campaigning against alcohol, and their lack of involvement in political scandals.[24] LVŽS was further boosted by the announcement that Saulius Skvernelis, a Minister of Interior in Butkevičius Cabinet and one of the most popular politicians in Lithuania, would head the party's electoral list in the elections, without joining the party.[25][26]
After successful performance in the 2016 parliamentary elections, a clarification about its English name format was issued, changing it to Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union.[27] Also, after these election the Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union became one of the main three political parties in Lithuania (along with the Homeland Union and the Social Democratic Party) at the time.[28]
After these elections, various pundits claimed that the Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union could form a coalition with the Homeland Union,[29] but Ramūnas Karbauskis proposed wide coalition between the aforementioned parties and the Social Democratic Party. The Homeland Union's leader Gabrielius Landsbergis himself proposed a coalition between the Homeland Union, the Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union and the Liberal Movement, although both Ramūnas Karbauskis and the Liberal Movement's leader Eugenijus Gentvilas turned down this offer.[30] Eventually, a coalition was formed between the Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union and the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania, which lasted until the autumn of 2017.
After the elections, Ramūnas Karbauskis resigned from his parliamentary seat. After the electoral loss the party (along with the Labour Party) began to support various radical movements on the political fringes (e. g. Families' Defense March and the Lithuanian Family Movement). This position caused disagreements within party and its parliamentary group.
Disagreements had forced a split in the parliamentary group in late summer and early autumn of 2021, and former Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis formed the newly established Union of Democrats "For Lithuania" (although this split was speculated by the pundits as early as March 2021).[33] Due to this and the Social Democratic Party's position not to support the opposition coalition, the party lost the position of opposition leader. By the end of 2021, the party started losing members in municipalities' districts (e. g. Lazdijai district municipality mayor Ausma Miškinienė left it along with the almost all LVŽS members in the area).[34]
Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union is placed on the left of Lithuanian political spectrum, although with strong left-wing populist and left-conservative tendencies.[10][11] The party is described as green conservative, agrarian and social conservative and is considered to be a blend of staunchly left-wing economic policy, environmentalism, and a conservative outlook on some sociocultural issues.[39] Economically, the party focuses on the importance of expanded healthcare and social welfare, whereas socially the party campaigns on traditional and Christian values and the need to stop the moral decay of contemporary society.[40] Its economic ideology has been described as social-democratic,[41] or akin to social democracy.[42] The party is also described as technocratic and agrarian populist.[43]
The rhetoric of the party is based on left-wing populism, prioritizing socioeconomic issues and establishing itself as the representative of the disadvantaged groups of Lithuanian society. Its voter base is composed of rural areas and small towns, and its supporters are mainly the poor, disadvantaged and anti-establishment voters.[44] It criticizes other partes for neglecting the needs of the poor.[45] The LVŽS is not a protest party however - it actively works with other parties and form cabinets.[44] The party appeals to traditional left-wing electorate by stressing the need to reduce social inequality, invest in impoverished areas, and increase minimum wage.[46] It strongly supports trade unions and promotes a union-favourable labor law,[47] demands progressive taxation, and redistribution of wealth from "business interests" to "the people".[41] The party campaigns on opposition to neoliberal policies, accusing other parties of "out-liberalizing" each other in pursuit of "avant-garde neoliberal policy ideas" at the expense of vulnerable socioeconomic groups.[48]
The main focus of the party is "social solidarity and left-wing ideas".[49] It criticizes right-leaning parties for anti-Russian sentiment as well as following the traditional division into "ex-communists and anti-communists".[46] The LVŽS to be neither post-communist nor anti-communist.[50] Socially, the party makes somewhat conservative appeals, pledging to uphold 'traditional' values, fight against alcohol and for "sober way of living", and protecting Lithuanian language.[46] It is less conservative on some other social matters - it postulates increased psychological services availability, old-age pensions rise, significant climate action via preservation, agricultural reform against large landowners, and environmental education.[50] The party is regarded as moderate in its social conservatism.[51]
Origins
Throughout its existence, the party has evolved from a purely agrarian party to a left-wing populist one, full of eclectic tendencies. Starting out as the farmer-focused Lithuanian Peasant Union (Lithuanian: Lietuvos Valstiečių Sąjunga) in the early 1990s, LVŽS was later renamed the Lithuanian Peasant Party (Lithuanian: Lietuvos valstiečių partija) and started broadening its program beyond agricultural issues, joining forces with the Lithuanian Women Party (Lithuanian: Lietuvos moterų partija) in 1995. In the early 2000s, the Lithuanian Peasant Party was becoming increasingly left-wing, leading to the change of its name to the Lithuanian Peasant People’s Party (Lithuanian: Lietuvos valstiečių liaudininkų partija) in 2005, which was to highlight both the leftwards turn of the party and to connect itself to the interwar peasant movements in Lithuania.[2]
In 2012, the party was renamed again to the Lithuanian Union of Peasants and Greens, after its leader Ramūnas Karbauskis steered the party towards green politics, strongly promoting renewable energy and campaigning against nuclear power plants. This led the party to combine both agricultural interests and elements of green politics, which at the time was condemned as a 'somewhat schizophrenic' political mix. At the same time, led by Karbauskis, it initiated the 2014 Lithuanian constitutional referendum, which sought to prohibit the ownership of land in Lithuania to foreign citizens, in violation of Lithuania's terms of membership in the European Union.[52] Karbauskis opposed Lithuania's accession to the European Union before 2004, although the party emphasized its pro-Europeanism during the 2016 campaign.[53] Between 2012 and 2016, the party also adopted right-wing views on social issues. In the 2016 Lithuanian parliamentary election, the main message of LVŽS was the need to fight poverty and social exclusion, for which the party blamed economic liberalism and pro-business policies by previous Lithuanian governments.[2]
Economic issues
Economically, the party is described as 'extreme-left' and strongly populist, presenting itself as a party of ordinary people. It is described as social democratic economically.[41][42] LVŽS argues that wealth inequality is one of Lithuania's key problems, contrasting the prosperity of Vilnius and the urban middle class with the impoverished Lithuanian countryside, struggling with high unemployment and lack of prospects. In its ideological manifesto "The Government Program for Sustainable Lithuania" (Lithuanian: Darnios Lietuvos Vyriausybės programa), LVŽS declared: "Addressing regional poverty and exclusion must become a priority task for the new government. Recognising that the economic cause of high unemployment and emigration is relatively low wages, we will take swift and effective measures to increase the income of the population, while at the same time striving to ensure an adequate social safety net." Accentuating the agrarianism of the party, the program also put heavy importance on "preserving the vitality of the Lithuanian countryside".[2]
LVŽS defines an economy that would prioritize the 'common man' as its goal, emphasizing the need to implement worker-friendly reforms in healthcare and education, a significant increase in wages and pensions, and the drastic revision of Lithuania's labour code, which the party has denounced as pro-business. The party has pledged to create a state-owned pharmacy network and sharply reduce drug prices, and initiated an anti-alcohol campaign, which it implemented by increasing excise duty on alcohol, raising minimum drinking age to 20, introducing a total ban on alcohol advertising and establishing a state monopoly on alcohol trade.[2] The party is also strongly pro-union, and was praised for improving social dialogue between the state and the unions, and implementing a number of union-favourable collective agreements in the public sector. It also promotes public awareness and the visibility of trade unions, and encourages workers to join them.[47] The party also postulated a ban on land sales to foreigners.[54]
One of the party's main economic goals is to replace the privatization of retirement saving accounts and other welfare programs. After 1991, Lithuania "zealously embraced neoliberal doctrines" and became characterized by one of the lowest levels of social expenditure and the highest levels of poverty and inequality among EU Member States; the pensioners were amongst the poorest voting constituencies of Lithuania. LVŽS appealed to the impoverished pensioners for political support and pledged to restructure and nationalize the "second pillar" pension program. The party's plan "mobilized a number of powerful and vocal constituencies such as the banking, life insurance, private pension fund industries, as well as business lobbying groups that had high stakes in pension reform."[48]
Social issues
The party's program emphasises a commitment to establishing a "strong family" as the core of Lithuanian society. It also strongly praises the Catholic Church and its teachings, and opposes abortion, same-sex partnerships and assisted reproductive technologies on the basis of the Catholic faith. Despite this, in the twelfth Seimas, the LVŽS was a big tent in regards to social issues, and some of its members such as Dovilė Šakalienė and Tomas Tomilinas[55] were strong supporters of feminism, minority rights and civil partnerships for same-sex couples.[2] Since the 2020 election, the party has increasingly turned socially conservative, especially after its more liberal members of the Seimas joined the Union of Democrats "For Lithuania". The party's vice-chairman Tomas Tomilinas was expelled from the party in 2021 for voting in favor of same-sex partnerships.[56]
Given the social conservatism of the LVŽS and its emphasis on Christian values, traditional family and preservation of national identity, its rule was compared to that of Polish Law and Justice or Hungarian Fidesz. However, unlike these parties, LVŽS did not mark a break with the liberal course of the European Union. Ukrainian political scientist Nataliya Khoma argues that the social conservatism of the party is moderate, stating that LVŽS "bypassed the issue of sexual minority rights" and despite promoting conservative values, the party did not adopt "a radical platform that exacerbates this issue".[51]
Electoral campaigns
LVŽS's success in the 2016 parliamentary election has been compared to the victory of Donald Trump in the 2016 United States presidential election. According to Virgis Valentinavičius, both Trump and Karbauskis constructed a narrative of 'us against them', opposing themselves against the elite, in spite of both being among the wealthiest people in their respective countries, and both also shifted the blame for their early scandals to the media and the conspiracy of the establishment.[2]
In December 2023, the party took part in a meeting called "The family of European Conservatives is expanding" organized by the European Conservatives and Reformists.[57]
In the 2024 European Parliament election in Lithuania, the party focused on the environmental issues and promoted green politics, and toned down its socially conservative policies.[37] After the election, however, it joined the right-wing and Eurosceptic ECR Party.
2001 – Dec 2005: Peasants and New Democratic Party Union or Union of Peasants and New Democratic Parties (Valstiečių ir Naujosios demokratijos partijų sąjunga/VNDS)
Dec 2005 – Jan 2012: Lithuanian Peasant Popular Union (Lietuvos valstiečių liaudininkų sąjunga/LVLS)
Jan 2012 – Feb 2017: Lithuanian Peasant and Greens Union (Lietuvos valstiečių ir žaliųjų sąjunga/LVŽS)
Feb 2017 – present: Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union (Lietuvos valstiečių ir žaliųjų sąjunga/LVŽS)
^Dulys, Sam L. (8 June 2021). Conserve and Conservative: The Ideological Divide Between the Green Parties of Lithuania and New Zealand and Its Ramifications for Environmentalism's Future. Environmental & Urban Studies (Thesis). University of Chicago. p. 11. doi:10.6082/uchicago.3061. While groups like LVŽS advocate for environmentalism, conservation, and other ecological considerations, this is done in the backdrop of anti-Russian sentiment in addition to criticism of Lithuania's predominant political forces.
^Hagemans, Iris; van Hemert, Patricia; Meerkerk, Joachim; Risselada, Anne; van Winden, Risselada (2020). "ABCitiEs Policy Evaluation Report". Research Report. 20. Brussels: European Union: 14. However, after the last elections in 2016, a large majority of Parliament seats went to a new centre-left Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union party.
^ abc"Nations in Transit 2021 - Lithuania". freedomhouse.org. 2021. As a result, LVŽS appeared to establish itself as the main left-wing actor on the political spectrum, pushing out LSDP.
^ abMindaugas Kluonis (30 October 2020). "Lithuania turns right: urban-rural cleavage, generational change, and left-wing perspectives". progressivepost.eu. This lack of firm position did not work, and in rural areas, the LSDP lost to the more populist and conservative left-wing LVŽS as well as to the Labour Party (DP), while in urban areas progressive voters voted for the liberals, mostly for the Freedom Party, but also for the Liberal Movement.
^Toots, Anu; Lauri, Triin; Garritzmann, Julian L.; Häusermann, Silja; Palier, Bruno (19 May 2022). "Nation (Re)Building Through Social Investment? The Baltic Reform Trajectories". The World Politics of Social Investment: Volume II: The Politics of Varying Social Investment Strategies. New York: Oxford Academic Press. p. 166. doi:10.1093/oso/9780197601457.003.0007. In the second half of the 2010s, agrarian parties moved toward populism, which in Estonia and Latvia has a radical right-wing flavor, whereas the Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union is rather leftist.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
^Bakke, Elisabeth (2010). "Central and East European party systems since 1989". Central and Southeast European Politics since 1989. Cambridge University Press. p. 81.
^"Verčiant į anglų žodžio "valstiečiai" neliks". Lietuvos Žinios (in Lithuanian). 17 February 2017. Retrieved 18 February 2017. LVŽS šiandien pranešė, kad nuo šiol partijos pavadinimas angliškai skambės Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union.
^Tusor, Anita; Escobar Fernández, Iván (2023). "Mapping European Populism – Panel 7: Populist parties/actors and far-right movements in the Baltic countries and Belarus". European Center for Populism Studies. doi:10.55271/rp0009.
^Šuminas, Andrius; Aleksandravičius, Arnas; Gudinavičius, Arūnas (2017). "Negative Political Communication in Online Video Advertisements: Case Study of 2016 Lithuanian Parliamentary Election". Political Preferences. 14. Vilnius University: 47–62. doi:10.6084/m9.figshare.5216167.
^ abcNavickas, Andrius (2017). "Lithuania after Politics?". Political Preferences. 14 (1). Vilnius University: 99–114. doi:10.6084/m9.figshare.5216197.
^ abJeremy Waddington; Torsten Müller; Kurt Vandaele (2023). Trade unions in the European Union: Picking up the pieces of the neoliberal challenge. Work & Society. Vol. 86. Bern: Peter Lang Group AG. pp. 720–722. doi:10.3726/b20254. ISBN978-2-87574-634-4.
^Aidukaite, Jolanta; Saxonberg, Steven; Szelewa, Dorota; Szikra, Dorottya (2021). "Social policy in the face of a global pandemic: Policy responses to the COVID-19 crisis in Central and Eastern Europe". Social Policy Administration. 55 (22). John Wiley & Sons Ltd: 369. doi:10.1111/spol.12704.
^ abDulys, Sam L. (8 June 2021). Conserve and Conservative: The Ideological Divide Between the Green Parties of Lithuania and New Zealand and Its Ramifications for Environmentalism's Future. Environmental & Urban Studies (Thesis). University of Chicago. pp. 1–23. doi:10.6082/uchicago.3061.
^Adutaviciute, Meta; Jureviciute, Goda (31 August 2022). Anna Krasteva; Nicholas Paddiso (eds.). "Hate Speech and Euroscepticism in Lithuania"(PDF). National Report. Vilnius: Human Rights Monitoring Institute: 38.
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