Although the Conservative leader has already given his explanation for the incident several years ago, it seems that the questions in this story continue to grow.
For G. Landsberg, the Seimas opposition has already prepared a questionnaire before the session of the extraordinary parliamentary session, so that he would explain why the minister’s family paid the advance for real estate abroad in February 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine.
At that time, Lithuanian residents were urged not to panic, but the tension in society was enormous – people rushed to withdraw money, some even started planning to flee the country, although the threat level in Lithuania had not increased.
Therefore, questions were also raised by the foreign minister’s kind of hiding – although G. Landsbergis finally explained about the villa in Greece over the weekend, on the day when a scandalous publication appeared in the newspaper “Lietuvos rytas”, the minister suddenly took an unpaid leave and did not comment a word about it for several days.
The political scientists who debated on the Žinia radio program “Atviras pokalbis” have no doubt that this misunderstanding will be very well exploited by political opponents, so it seems that the villa of the G. Landsbergis family will not be forgotten until the Seimas elections.
What will be affected the most?
Vytautas Magnus University (VDU) political scientist, professor Lauras Bielinis is convinced that before the elections, some politicians must have liked this fiasco of the conservative leader very much.
“It is before the elections super question He actually attracts attention, he allows the opposition to make fun of the ruling party, the conservatives, and for that reason, I think he will continue to spin this issue for a long time in order to show the public that this is what the ruling party looks like, especially their leader, that he is at a critical moment bought himself a villa in Greece to possibly hide away, and so on.
Here, everything is, as they say, a legend for the sake of the electoral effect”, assessed L. Bielinis.
Will that effect be there? According to the professor, today it is clear that the conservatives have lost their momentum in a certain sense.
“I don’t understand what the problem is, but they are really lagging behind somehow, they are criticized very easily – both the opposition and the media find one or the other sharp nuance.
The problem of the head of the conservative faction is much more acute (revocation of legal immunity of Andrias Vyšniauskas– aut.past.), because G. Landsberg’s villa is a private case, which allows the election campaign to use this case as a mockery and mockery of a person”, commented the VDU professor.
When asked why, in general, it is useful for the opposition political forces to mock the conservatives, when before the elections they should be more concerned about their own place under the sun, L. Bielinis considered that this is exactly how they create that place under the sun for themselves.
“The Conservative voter is constant, they don’t pay attention because they will still vote Conservative, but there is a certain percentage of the electorate that swings to the Conservative side from time to time.
These are the voters on the right who are undecided – they are very strongly influenced.
Secondly, voters who vote for opposition representatives have one strange feature, that they do not always go to vote when they support the opposition – they need to be motivated, they need to be mobilized.
And this kind of criticism makes their supporters emotional, that this is how our people hammer the conservatives, this is how they need it.
Therefore, it means a kind of mobilization of one’s own voters on the left”, explained L. Bielinis.
He also sees revenge
Political scientist Vytautas Dumbliauskas seconded the professor, stressing that the opposition that attacked Mr. Landsbergis because of his villa in Greece is “buying voters” in this way, and will likely buy quite a few of them.
“Those so-called left-wing voters don’t like the Conservatives very much, and the party that criticizes the Conservatives the most will get the most attention.
They are fighting precisely for their electorate – not for the right, but for their left electorate, which is about 800 thousand people.
Whether it is the peasants, or R. Žemaitaitis, or the Social Democrats, or the party of S. Skvernelis – this is the only way they can attract the left-wing electorate, which is not loyal or stable.
The conservatives became such a tool”, assessed V. Dumbliauskas.
The political scientist testified that he himself was somewhat sad because of this, because the former strong right-wing party “earned money”, moreover, it surrendered to the left and allowed them to criticize and trample on it so strongly.
And while commenting on the question of G. Landsbergis, already as a European Commissioner, V. Dumbliauskas noticed that probably the candidacy of this politician is very unacceptable not only to President Gitan Nausėda.
“The Freedom Party has shown that they want to play some kind of game, after all, Eugenijus Gentvilas has publicly said more than once that G. Landsbergis has never called him in four or eight years, he hasn’t communicated with the coalition partners, and I think that the coalition partners can to come up with such a tiny revenge.
Now, those 10 candidates proposed by Ms. Aušrinė, I think, are such a tiny revenge. In fact, we have many candidates – in my opinion, A. Kubilius is a hundred times more worthy candidate for the post of European Commissioner than G. Landsbergis.
But the conservatives think differently – I think they just want to send Gabrielias away from Lithuania, because he is apparently hindering the party here,” the political scientist thought.
However, V. Dumbliauskas himself has no doubt that G. Landsbergis is very eager for this post, even though the minister has already said that he will not pursue it.
“I think he wants to. He did everything during his four-year term to draw the world’s attention to himself, doing self-promotion, interviews with the BBC, CNN and everything else,” he said.
He gave his explanations
G. Landsbergis explained to the ELTA news agency after several days of silence that the speculations as to why his family bought real estate on the Greek island have nothing to do with reality.
The politician claimed that the scandal was caused on a level playing field, ignoring not only the fact that all legally required information about the purchased villa was provided and publicly available in the declaration, but also exceeding the tolerable limits of privacy.
“Anyone who has purchased any real estate, especially out of state, probably understands that real estate is an acquisition over a long period of time. Our search for property began, like many families we know, back in the midst of COVID-19.
People have been buying homesteads or homestead-style homes, thinking that if pandemics continue, it’s good to have a homestead place. There is no possibility to pay the advance in a month”, said the Minister of Foreign Affairs to Eltai.
According to the politician, his family started looking for real estate in 2020, and a specific object appeared in 2021.
Almost at the same time, G. Landsbergis also presented another message – he admitted to Eltai that it would have been an honor for him to work as a European Commissioner, but he assured that he would serve Lithuania in other ways.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs said on Friday that he had received information that President G. Nausėda would not approve of his candidacy for European Commissioner. This angle has already managed to circle the international media as well.
2024-08-19 03:41:34