Ex-Communist Leader Trounces Lithuania’s Independence Heroes

Lithuania’s ruling Sajudis Movement, blaming the same economic malaise that crippled President Bush at the polls, went down to crushing defeat in elections swept by the Baltic state’s former Communist leader and his new party, results showed Monday.

Headed by sharp-tongued Parliament Chairman Vytautas Landsbergis, the musicologist who steered Lithuania to independence 2 1/2 years ago, Sajudis took only eight seats in Sunday’s runoff elections for the 141-seat legislature.

The Democratic Labor Party won 35 seats in the Seimas, enough to give it and its leader, Algirdas Brazauskas, the bearlike former first secretary of Lithuania’s Soviet-era Communist Party, an absolute majority and the right to form the next government.

Heroes of Lithuania’s March, 1990, secession from Moscow, Landsbergis and his supporters proved far less competent in weaning the economy off government subsidies and Soviet-style state planning. As a result of their efforts, industrial output in the first 10 months of 1992 plummeted by almost half and prices in the country of 3.8 million soared much faster than wages.

Already alerted by a first round of voting in October to the near certainty of Sunday’s electoral debacle, Sajudis officials philosophically drew parallels between the victory of Brazauskas and Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton’s win over Bush in the U.S. presidential elections this month.

“Our situation is similar to the U.S.,” said Aurelius Katkevicius, an adviser on domestic affairs to Landsbergis. “Bush had less of an economic program than we do, but it is very hard for an incumbent to win elections in conditions of a weak economy. People feel that maybe a different political leadership will guarantee them tranquillity.”

Brazauskas, who sought much greater autonomy for his homeland and party even when he was leader of Lithuania’s Communists, has said a return to Communist rule is impossible. But his Democratic Labor Party wants to dramatically improve relations with Russia and to slow or reverse free-market reforms that have been painful for many.

He assured Lithuanians that reforms would continue, albeit with certain “corrections.” He explicitly denied claims that “the Communists are coming back to power.”

Earlier in the day, when the magnitude of his party’s fiasco was clear, Landsbergis said Lithuanian democracy could be threatened by “monopoly rule” by the Democratic Labor Party.

Katkevicius indicated that Sajudis would now transform itself into a parliamentary opposition and refuse to cooperate with the victors. “Let them bear all of the responsibility on their shoulders,” Katkevicius said.