Vytautas Sinica is a political scientist with a Ph.D. in political theory from Vilnius University. An accomplished author, he has published more than twenty books in the fields of philosophy, history, and politics. In 2020, he co-founded and became vice chairman of a new national conservative party, National Alliance (Nacionalinis Susivienijimas, NS), being elected as a councillor in the Lithuanian capital in the March 2023 elections. On 27 October 2024, Sinica was one of the surprises of the general election, when he defeated Radvilė Morkūnaitė-Mikulėnienė, the ruling Homeland Union’s education minister, by a slim margin. We spoke to him about the ideas that brought his party to the Lithuanian parliament and the change of government with the victory of the social democrats.
Your party, barely four years old, has managed to get into the capital’s city council and now also into parliament. What was the key to getting through to the second round and then winning the seat?
Getting into the second round was mainly due to our party position and my widely seen and well perceived debate appearance. We did zero advertisement in the constituency during the first round. Later, when going door to door during the second round, almost half of those who expressed support for me said it was because of the competent and calm performance they saw. But that only got us 5% as a party and 13.6% for me personally. In the second round, we added very intensive online, outdoors, and door-to-door campaigns, with three messages. For those against the ruling party, the message was “enough of Homeland Union.” For those who liked the ruling party, the message was that the opponent is already elected to the parliament through her party ticket. And for everyone, the third message was that I am a completely local, home-grown politician, born in one part of the constituency and raised in another. It was the least political, but most catch-all, sentiment. They all played their part, in addition to our national conservative party program. I believe every message worked for a particular audience and, in the end, the difference was 447 votes or, in percentage terms, 1.5%.
In your programme, one of the key ideas is the problem of immigration. Lithuania, like Poland, suffered an artificial migration crisis created by Belarus. What is the situation today?
Yes; three years ago, in 2021, we had a serious problem of illegal immigration from Belarus, organised by the Lukashenko regime, which chartered charter flights from Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere to bring thousands of illegal immigrants to the Lithuanian border. Four thousand were accepted before a policy of refoulement was initiated.
But what we have now—mass legal immigration—is much worse. Migration policies have been liberalised and economic incentives are offered to come and work from anywhere in the world. The excuse is that they are needed for our labour market, but the fact is that we have one of the highest levels of unemployment in Europe. In the last four years, the number of foreigners has increased by 160,000, a considerable number in a population of less than three million people.
With such high unemployment, what is the point of this migration policy?
It makes no sense at all; and besides, such a large number cannot be assimilated. The Lithuanian government says that most of them are Ukrainians, but this is not true. Of the 70,000 who came to Lithuania at the beginning of the war, more than half have returned to Ukraine. They represent a small number, and are real refugees.
Has awareness of the migration problem increased among the Lithuanian population?
It should be understood that, so far, it is not a crime problem as in other European countries, but a cultural and language problem. Most of the immigrants come from post-Soviet countries and speak Russian, as do a large number of Lithuanians. In Lithuania, people can receive all their education in Russian. To give you an idea of the problem: before the elections, the government adopted a law making it compulsory to speak Lithuanian in public-facing jobs, such as in shops and taxis.
Lithuania has a Russian minority of around 6% of the population. Given Russia’s use of the language and its national minorities, doesn’t the arrival of more Russian speakers pose a security problem?
Yes, of course. We have always had problems with a part of that minority who watch Russian television and whose geopolitical orientation is in the Kremlin. Right now, the largest group of migrants comes from Belarus. The government says they are political refugees fleeing Lukashenko, but only 400 out of 60,000 have applied for such status; and of these, only 200 have been granted it. In other words, the vast majority are economic migrants who travel to Belarus every week. The Department of Homeland Security has said publicly that this influx of Belarusian citizens represents a serious threat because, last year, in a series of random checks, more than 1,000 Belarusians were detected and declared a ‘national threat,’ although I do not know if they were eventually expelled. Belarus is an enemy country and this should not be taken lightly.
The Social Democrats have won this election and the local elections before that. What is the reason for their victory?
In Lithuania, there is a strong tendency for the Left and the Right to alternate, and economic issues are the most relevant for voters. Right now there is only a small middle class, and many people want to receive state economic aid, which has favoured the social democratic approach. The winner, Vilija Blinkevičiūtė, was minister of labour during an economic boom, and became famous for granting subsidies. In fact, she was nicknamed “mother of pensioners.” I don’t think that she would be a good manager in a tougher economic climate, and she has said that she doesn’t want to be prime minister, but her message has resonated with voters.
Do you expect any changes in Lithuania’s foreign policy regarding the war?
I think there will be no change, because there is a clear consensus on this in Lithuania. In the elections, there were a few parties that advocated pragmatic relations with Russia, and advocated peace, and none of them have managed to get into parliament. We know that we have to stand strong against Russia and strengthen our army. A decade ago, the Social Democrats wanted to reset the relationship with Russia, and they said so publicly when they were in power, in 2014 and 2019. But now, after the invasion of Ukraine, that is not politically acceptable, and for that reason their position will be, more or less actively, in favour of a hard line against Russia. And that is a good thing.
Until now, Lithuania has had a very clear voice in this regard, Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis.
Yes; he has been very clear in talking about the problem in the international sphere. But from a domestic point of view, it has only been words. Nine months ago, he warned about the poor state of our army and the need to strengthen it, and he was absolutely right. But at the same time, his party’s ministry of defence did absolutely nothing. Landsbergis has been very good at supporting Ukraine and saying how Lithuania should prepare, but his party’s government has done nothing.
You have achieved the most difficult thing: entering parliament. What do you want to achieve now? What role will your party play in the next legislature?
I feel that this is a great opportunity that we cannot miss. This election campaign made us visible in the media and the goal is to be active in parliament to continue being visible. Of course, we will be in opposition, but I believe in constructive opposition: we will support what is good and reject what is bad. In Lithuania it is very common to vote against what other parties propose. For example, the Social Democrats voted against same-sex unions because they were in opposition and the proposal came from the Homeland Union, and I think also because the majority of Lithuanian society is against it. We will not be like that. On the other hand, being in parliament has made us receive a state subsidy, which is small, but for us it represents an important support and the possibility to start appearing in the polls, something that only happens with parliamentary parties. Thanks to this visibility, we will be able to spread our message and, above all, talk about mass immigration, an issue of concern for all of the other parties and one which is going to represent a serious problem in the future.
