The Lithuanian Political Party System: A Case Study of Democratic Consolidation
The Lithuanian Political Party System: A Case Study of Democratic Consolidation

Summary/Abstract: In the February 1990 elections to the Supreme Council, Sajudis overwhelmingly defeated the Lithuanian Communist party (later renamed the Democratic Labor party). With control of a hundred seats in the 141-seat legislature, the movement embarked upon an ambitious effort to regain the prewar independence of the Lithuanian state. Achieving its goal in September 1991 following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Sajudis appeared to have secured a position as the dominant political force in the republic for the foreseeable future. But in a series of initiatives in domestic and foreign policy that resulted in the loss of markets for Lithuania's finished goods, a critical oil shortage, and a poor harvest (caused by a drought but exacerbated by implementation of a privatization program), Sajudis squandered its political capital. So much so, in fact, that the former Communists were able to gain control of the newly constituted Seimas in the fall 1992 elections. Faced with this striking change of fortune, Sajudis warned that the country was threatened with the demise of democracy and the reinstitution of Soviet-style communism. [...]

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