The parliamentary ouster of Seimas chairman Arūnas Valinskas leaves me unfazed.

I have no liking for or allegiance to the man. He strikes me as a vain and thin-skinned populist. I certainly don’t admire his politics because, frankly, he hasn’t any.

That said, his removal from the speaker’s chair strikes me as just another in a long list of orchestrated political smear jobs. A circus act to keep voters’ eyes off the ball – the flows of money, energy, cargo, and so forth.

Does anyone today remember Seimas chair Viktoras Muntjanas? A scant two years ago or so a silent, grainy video surfaced showing him paying some money to an official. Little digging was done by media, nothing was proved, but packing he was went. Now fighting leukemia, he told Lietuvos Rytas in a recent interview that he can still feel the knife in his back.

The evidence against Valinskas is just as flimsy. The usual unverified and unverifiable allegations of some sort or other, all hearsay. Group photos where his “clan” are allegedly depicted consorting with underworld figures. (An old game. Ex-President Adamkus had that sort of nonsense lobbed at him too.)

Mr Valinskas is a political virgin and a legislative stumblebum, but I rather doubt he would have been fool enough to get into bed with the brutal Daktarai (Doctors) crime outfit, especially in their heyday a decade ago. He could easily have ended up chopped up into bits and served as grilled šašlykai. Do I exaggerate? I do, but only slightly, I assure you.

Valinskas seems a shrewd business operator, and he was making piles of dough in TV. His entry into politics was stupidly narcissistic, but I doubt ill-intentioned.

It all points to a well-known problem in this corner of Europe. Law enforcement and security services remain politicized.

Want to carry out a political ouster in Lithuania? Get a spook or cop buddy to serve you up some alleged filth that tars your opponent, then plant it in the media to get the ball rolling. Reams of lazy and/or underpaid and overworked local churnalists will be only too happy to jump on the bandwagon and help you get the juicy story out the door. Many scandalized readers. Many ads sold.

Then the media sing in chorus, “in the west politicians resign their chairs rather than clog up the works.” True enough, but in the west you’ve also got to provide some weightier evidence before you bay for blood.

My feelings towards him aside, Valinskas did the right thing by going down in flames and not resigning. I hope the many future victims will follow suit and start a Lithuanian tradition.

And what’s the long-term solution? There is none, at least for now. Before last year’s elections, Lithuanian pop idol Marijonas Mikutavičius told an interviewer he would not be voting. The present generation of politicians must die out first, he said. Sadly, I find myself agreeing.

Disclaimer:

Views expressed in the opinion section are never those of the Baltic Reports company or the website’s editorial team as a whole, but merely those of the individual writer.