Dropping the pilot

Date: 15/11/03

Rolandas Paksas is under growing pressure to quit

“NO, I will not resign,” President Rolandas Paksas of Lithuania insisted this week, after less than a year in the job. The former Soviet stunt pilot may change his mind. An official report linking people around him to influence-peddling and organised crime has left him looking careless, at best, in his choice of advisers.

A dossier given to parliamentary leaders by Lithuania's security services says that Mr Paksas's national security adviser, Remigijus Acas, was one of several senior figures acquainted with a reputed Russian organised-crime boss, who was keen to expand his interests in Lithuania. Another close associate, said to have links to the illegal arms trade, allegedly threatened to make Mr Paksas “a political corpse” after he failed to get a government job in return for a big campaign donation.

Mr Paksas has suspended Mr Acas, who denies wrongdoing. A parliamentary investigation has begun. Some commentators speculate about a presidential impeachment, though the grounds remain unclear. The public prosecutor may question the president next week. Mr Paksas sees a “conspiracy” against him, and perhaps against Lithuania's plans to join the EU and NATO.

As a right-wing president, he can expect little sympathy from a left-wing parliament. But this scandal owes little to domestic politicking. Arturas Paulauskas, the speaker of parliament, says it was caused partly by tip-offs from foreign intelligence services, who are keen to see Lithuania clean house before joining NATO. They have a point. The president decides foreign policy, chairs the defence council and is commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Better, perhaps, if he is not a friend of a friend of a reputed Russian mafia boss.

Much turns on what Algirdas Brazauskas, Lithuania's left-wing prime minister, says. His tone, neutral at first, has grown steelier. A reshuffle of presidential advisers, set in motion this week, may no longer be enough, he has said. He is waiting to see if “new facts” emerge that might “implicate the president directly”. Mr Brazauskas may once have thought that a weakened president would suit him. But the likelier it is that Mr Paksas will go, the less profitable it will be to stand by him.

Lithuania's embattled president Rolandas Paksas is under growing pressure to quit.