Showbiz mastermind Arunas Valinskas has long been a fixture on the small screen in his native Lithuania.
Now the 41-year-old reality show producer and host of the local version of the game show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire has stormed onto the political scene.
The National Resurrection Party, founded by Valinskas earlier this year, looks set to play a crucial role in the formation of a new government in this Baltic state, after a startling general election performance which left it second behind the opposition Conservatives.
Ahead of run-off polls this Sunday, Valinskas was already talking like a statesman, and playing down the idea that he is a kingmaker.
“Our victory wasn’t a reason to party, but a sign that we need to keep up our work,” Valinskas said in an interview.
“Our driving force is our desire for change,” he said.
Dozens of singers, actors, musicians and fellow TV stars joined Valinskas in setting up National Resurrection, in what he said was a bid to raise the curtain on a new political era in this former Soviet republic and restore faith in lawmakers.
“Being a showman is an advantage. We know how to speak the language of the people,” Valinskas said.
Graft scandals and frustration at lawmakers’ horsetrading have made parliament one of the least popular institutions among the 3.4 million people of Lithuania, which won independence from Moscow in 1991 and joined the EU in 2004.
Lithuania has a complex electoral system under which 70 lawmakers are elected by proportional representation from party lists in a first round and the remaining 71 in head-to-head battles in constituencies, usually after a second, run-off round of voting.
National Resurrection came second in the first round on Oct. 12, winning 13 seats, while the Conservatives took 18.
The Conservatives are also expected to perform best in today’s run-off, bringing their total to close to 50, meaning the support of Valinskas’ party and smaller liberal groupings will be crucial to create a majority coalition.
“It’s clear that the ball would be squarely in the Conservatives’ court. We’ll be there to help them along the way,” Valinskas said.
But there have been suggestions that the ruling Social Democrats, who came fourth in the first round with 11 seats, could also try to bring Valinskas on board — the party has held onto office since 2001 by cooking up a string of coalitions.
“National Resurrection is a party without any ideological principles or programme,” Vilnius University political scientist Alvidas Lukosaitis said.
“So it has complete freedom to join either side,” he said.
Lukosaitis said he doubted that National Resurrection’s newly-elected lawmakers could hold together as a united parliamentary bloc, claiming showbiz tempers would get in the way.
Valinskas rejected claims that the party is a publicity stunt, reaffirming that it will still be around for the 2012 elections.
“Television isn’t the be all and end all for me. That’s something I’ve often said,” he said.
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
An American man identified as the son of a deputy director of the CIA was killed in eastern Ukraine last year while fighting under contract for the Russian military, an investigation by independent Russian media said. Michael Alexander Gloss, 21, died on April 4 last year in “Eastern Europe,” an obituary published by his family said. He was the son of Juliane Gallina, who was appointed the deputy director for digital innovation at the CIA in February last year. The story of how the son of a top-ranking US spy died fighting for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of
RSS