CIS: Electoral stunts

Lithuanian voters go to the polls on Sunday for the first round of parliamentary elections (with run-offs a fortnight later in single-member constituencies).  Polls suggest only five parties passing the 5% threshold, only one of which is from the outgoing government -- Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas’s Social Democrats, placed fourth.  In the lead are the opposition nationalists of the Homeland Union (TS).  However, the five leading parties do not muster 50% between them. 

In Azerbaijan, President Ilham Aliyev will be re-elected on Wednesday.  There is little doubt of that.  A recent poll shows 87% intending to vote for him, with his nearest rival scoring 2%.  An independent review of election coverage found the pro-regime media devoting 97-98% of their election coverage to the ruling party.  There seems little incentive for voters to vote in such a one-sided contest, but whatever the electorate does, the official turnout will be respectable.

In Lithuania, political apathy has other causes -- parliament (Seimas) has little respect among the population, being Lithuania’s most distrusted institution as a result (among other things) of the fractious nature of party politics.  There were eight party parliamentary floor groups in the last parliament, with Labour -- the party which won most seats in 2004 -- in opposition.  It is the sort of election in which a disgraced former president, Rolandas Paksas, may do well on the back of a protest vote.  A film on Paksas’s career as a stunt pilot is playing well in Lithuania’s cinemas.  His populist Order and Justice (TT) party is polling behind TS with 11.4%.  Western governments would not like a coalition that has TT in it.