“Such a step would be my escape and abdication of responsibility from the not the funnest situation the party is in today,” A. Mazuronis told Žiniai Radio on Friday.
He said that he is performing his duties as Speaker of the Seimas properly, but if anyone thinks otherwise, he can initiate a no-confidence procedure.
“There are all the procedures for expressing no confidence in the parliament and similar things, I am ready to test the confidence”, said A. Mazuronis, and he also claimed that he may resign if he sees that the verdict in the Labor Party case prevents him from performing his duties.
“If it is necessary to resign, if I see that it is necessary to disturb the activities of the parliament, cause inconvenience to the Speaker of the Seimas due to my presence – I have no problem resigning at the same minute and not making some kind of tragedy out of this,” he said.
On Wednesday, the Court of Appeal of Lithuania changed the decision of the court of first instance and sentenced all the defendants in the political corruption case of the concern “MG Grupė” (previously called “MG Baltic”), some of them were sentenced to actual prison sentences.
More than 1.1 million and almost 377 thousand were allocated to “MG Grupa”, the Liberal Movement in the ruling majority and the opposition Labor Party, respectively. and more than 301 thousand EUR fines.
The representative of the opposition Lithuanian Peasants and Greens Union, Dainius Gaižauskas, announced on Thursday that he had asked the Seimas to temporarily suspend work and added that he believed that both the head of the Seimas, Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen, and the vice-chairman, “worker” Andrius Mazuronis, should “dissociate themselves from the party, possibly stop memberships in these parties”.
A. Mazuronis claims that he is not holding on to the chair, but clear arguments must be made as to why he should step down from the position of Seimas vice-chairman, since he only started leading the party last year.
“If I became the chairman of the party in 2022, I became a member of the party in 2020. We are talking about the events that took place (…) in 2015-2016, I was not even among the party members. Should I take political responsibility and say that it is partly my fault? I don’t think so, but if someone proves that I have to do it, I will do it without adhering to that position, if it will be easier for someone”, said A. Mazuronis.
Raimondas Kurlianskis, the former vice-president of MG Baltic, Eligijus Masiulis, the leader of the Liberal Movement, Vytautas Gapšys, the “Labor” MP, and ex-liberals Gintaras Steponavičius and Šarūnas Gustainiis were sentenced to imprisonment in this case.
The Vilnius District Court acquitted the defendants in this case last year.
The decision of the Court of Appeal enters into force from the day of its publication, but may be appealed to the Supreme Court of Lithuania.
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2024-08-12 20:40:06
