Social Democratic Party of Lithuania Lietuvos socialdemokratų partija | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Abbreviation | LSDP |
| Chairperson | Mindaugas Sinkevičius (acting) |
| First Deputy Chair | Vacant |
| Deputy Chairs | See list
|
| Executive Secretary | Justas Pankauskas |
| Founded | 1 May 1896; 129 years ago (1896-05-01) |
| Headquarters | B. Radvilaitės g. 1,Vilnius |
| Youth wing | Lietuvos socialdemokratinio jaunimo sąjunga (LSDJS) |
| Membership(2022) |  15,205[2] |
| Ideology | Social democracy |
| Political position | Centre-left |
| European affiliation | Party of European Socialists |
| European Parliament group | Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats |
| International affiliation | Progressive Alliance Socialist International |
| Colours | Red |
| Seimas | 52 / 141 |
| European Parliament | 2 / 11 |
| Municipal councils | 358 / 1,498 |
| Mayors | 17 / 60 |
| Website | |
| lsdp.lt | |
TheSocial Democratic Party of Lithuania (Lithuanian:Lietuvos socialdemokratų partija,LSDP) is acentre-left[3] andsocial democratic[4]political party in Lithuania.[5] Founded as an undergroundMarxist organisation in 1896, it is the oldest extant party inLithuania. During theSoviet occupation, the party ceased to exist. The party reemerged after thefall of the Soviet Union and the end of communist rule in 1989.
The party led a government in theunicameralSeimas, Lithuania's parliament from 2001 to 2008 and from 2012 to 2016. It has been the ruling party of Lithuania since2024. The party is a member of theParty of European Socialists (PES),Progressive Alliance,[6] andSocialist International.[7]
Initial discussions about forming aMarxist political party inLithuania began early in 1895, with a number of informal gatherings bringing together social democrats of various stripes resulting in a preparatory conference in the summer of that year.[8] Differences in objectives became clear between ethnicJews and ethnicLithuanians andPoles, with the former seeing themselves essentially as Russian Marxists while the latter two groups harboured both revolutionary and national aspirations.[9] Moreover, the ethnic Poles and Lithuanians saw themselves divided over the question of alliance with non-Marxist liberals. As a result, not one but three Marxist political organisations would emerge in Lithuania between 1895 and 1897.[10]
The Social Democratic Party of Lithuania (LSDP) was founded on 1 May(19 April O.S.) 1896 at a secret congress held in an apartment inVilnius.[11] Among the 13 delegates wereAndrius Domaševičius andAlfonsas Moravskis—a pair of intellectuals regarded as the central organisers of the new political entity—and the future President of Lithuania,Kazys Grinius, as well as a number of worker activists.[12] Also in attendance as a representative of the radical youth movement was an 18-year-old ethnic Pole namedFelix Dzerzhinsky, later the head of theSoviet secret police.[11] As Lithuania was then part of theRussian Empire, the LSDP was inevitably an illegal organisation, meeting in secret and seeking to bring about the revolutionary overthrow of theTsarist regime.
The LSDP was a dual language organisation, publishing its illegal newspapers both inLithuanian andPolish.[13] Newspapers were published abroad, printed inEast Prussia (or sometimesSwitzerland orFrance) and smuggled across the border.[14] Technical assistance was occasionally provided by theSocial Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania party, headed byJulian Marchlewski.[15]
The party's first program, approved in 1896, was directly influenced by theErfurt Program, as well as the resolutions of theSecond International and the program of theSocial Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and thePolish Socialist Party. It called for an independent democratic republic of Lithuania in a federation withPoland,Latvia,Belarus andUkraine. It was the first political organization in Lithuania to call for Lithuania's independence from theRussian Empire.[16]
This smuggling of Lithuanian newspapers had historical antecedents. Following thePolish and Lithuanian Uprising of 1863, the Tsarist regime had banned publication of all newspapers which used theLatin alphabet, a measure which amounted to ade facto ban of the entire Lithuanian press.[17] This proscription extended for the rest of the 19th Century; in 1898 of 18 newspapers appearing in Lithuanian, 11 were published by Lithuanians in emigration in America and the other 7 were published in East Prussia.[17]
The LSDP was very nearly obliterated at birth by theOkhrana, which over the course of 1897 to 1899 managed to arrest a number of the party's leading activists.[15] Approximately 280 socialist andtrade union organisers were apprehended during this period, with subsequent trials leading to theSiberian exile of more than 40 people, including Domaševičius and Dzerzhinsky.[15] Other top leaders, including Moravskis, were forced to flee the country to avoid being swept up in the Okhrana's dragnet.[15] With the party leadership jailed or chased from the country, the LSDP very nearly ceased to exist as the 19th century drew to a close.[15]
From 1900 to 1902, the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania began to tentatively rise from the ashes behind a new crop of young revolutionaries.[15] Chief among these were a pair of Lithuanian students in Vilnius, Vladas Sirutavičius and Steponas Kairys.[18]
It was the first Lithuanian political party and one of the major parties who initiated the assembly calledGreat Seimas of Vilnius in 1905. In the Great Seimas, it represented the most radical left wing of the assembly and had poor relations with the assembly's other representatives, which belonged to the liberalLithuanian Democratic Party and the LithuanianChristian democratic current. These two parties opposed LSDP's program of armed struggle against the Russian government and it was thus not adopted by the assembly.[19]
During theGerman occupation of Lithuania from 1915 to 1918, the party abandoned previous projects for a multinational federation or autonomy within Russia, began to call for an independent democratic Lithuania and joined theCouncil of Lithuania. However, it experienced an internal crisis in late 1918 and was divided between supporting theConstituent Assembly of Lithuania orsoviet rule. In December 1918, the majority of LSDP members inVilnius, led byAndrius Domaševičius, left the party and established the short-livedLSDP-LKP which recognized theBolshevik-supported revolutionary government led byVincas Mickevičius-Kapsukas.[20] A minority group of social democrats led by Steponas Kairys andJuozas Paknys remained in Lithuania, supported the government ofMykolas Sleževičius during theLithuanian Wars of Independence and reestablished the party ahead of the1920 Lithuanian parliamentary election.[21]
The party was one of the major political powers during the Lithuanian independence period between 1918 and 1940. Following the election of 1926, the party formed a left-wing coalition government with Lithuanian Peasant Popular Union. This government was dismissed after the1926 Lithuanian coup d'état. The authoritarian regime ofAntanas Smetona banned all political parties in 1936.
During theSoviet occupation era, no democratically constituted political parties existed within Lithuania. Therefore, between 1945 and the 1989 restoration of independence, the party was assembled and worked covertly in exile.[citation needed]
In 1989, the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania was restored.Kazimieras Antanavičius was elected to be party's leader. The party had 9 seats in theSupreme Council – Reconstituent Seimas and was not successful in substantially increasing the number in the following elections, with 8 seats won in1992 and 12 in1996.
In 1999, the party's congress elected a new leader,Vytenis Andriukaitis and merger negotiations with theDemocratic Labour Party of Lithuania (LDDP)–the bulk of the formerCommunist Party of Lithuania (which had broken away from Moscow in 1989) began. Members of the party opposing the merger left to establish "Social democracy 2000" (later renamed "Social Democratic Union of Lithuania"). The SDPL-LDDP coalition won 51 of the 141 seats in theelections in 2000 (with 19 going to the Social Democrats). However, despite success in the elections, the coalition parties had to settle for a place in the opposition until 2001, when the collapse of theruling coalition between Liberals and New Union allowed ex-PresidentAlgirdas Brazauskas to form a government with New Union.
In 2001, the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania and theDemocratic Labour Party of Lithuania merged. The merged party kept the Social Democratic name, but was dominated by former Democratic Labour Party members (ex-Communists). After the merger, Algirdas Brazauskas was elected leader of the Social Democratic Party.
By the beginning of 2004, negotiations between the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania and various other parties to form electoral coalition.[22] They managed to form electoral coalition called "Working for Lithuania" with their coalition partners, New Union.[23] At the2004 legislative elections, the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania won 20 of the 141 seats in the Seimas (other 11 seats were won by the New Union), but managed to stay at the helm of successive coalition governments, includingthe minority government between 2006 and 2008. During the minority government, party's parliamentary group became the largest one in parliament, mainly due to defections from the Labour Party and the New Union (Social Liberals).
Brazauskas resigned as the chairman of the party on 19 May 2007 and was replaced byGediminas Kirkilas.
At the2008 elections, the party won 11.73% of the national vote and 25 seats in theSeimas, five more than in the previous elections. However, its coalition partners, theLabour Party, theNew Union (Social Liberals) and the Lithuanian Peasants Popular Union, fared poorly and the party ended up in opposition to theHomeland Union-led government.
On 7 March 2009, the party's congress elected a new leader,Algirdas Butkevičius. He was the party's candidate at the2009 Lithuanian presidential election, coming in second place with 11.83% of the vote.
At the2012 parliamentary elections, the party took 38 seats and became the largest party in Parliament (although it lost in popular vote). Butkevičius became theprime minister, forming acoalition government with theLabour Party,Order and Justice andElectoral Action of Poles in Lithuania – Christian Families Alliance.[24] At the2016 parliamentary elections, the party took 21 seats and formed a coalition withLithuanian Farmers and Greens Union.
In 2017, the Social Democratic Party withdraw from coalition. In 2018, some party members left and formed theSocial Democratic Labour Party of Lithuania. After this split, the party lost a lot of support, but in 2019 it partly recovered.
At the2020 parliamentary elections, the party achieved worse results than expected. Due to this,Gintautas Paluckas received criticism from party's board and resigned in 2021. Aftera leadership election,Vilija Blinkevičiūtė (between 2002 and 2006 she was New Union (Social Liberals) member) was elected as the new leader. After election of Blinkevičiūtė, the party's support nearly doubled thanks to her personal popularity.[25]
In the2024 parliamentary elections, the party achieved a "historic victory",[26] finishing in first place with 19.32% of the popular vote and 52 out of 141 seats.[27] While party chair Vilija Blinkevičiūtė had expressed her willingness to serve as prime minister during the campaign, she declined the role after the election, leading instead to the nomination of deputy chair Gintautas Paluckas. This unexpected change in leadership was criticized by the LSDP's potential coalition partners.[28]
After the election, further controversy arose when the Social Democrats invited the newly created populist partyDawn of Nemunas to join the ruling coalition, along with theUnion of Democrats "For Lithuania". The founder of Dawn of Nemunas,Remigijus Žemaitaitis, is known for making antisemitic statements,[29] and his party's inclusion sparked backlash from Lithuaniancivil society groups,[30] as well as from lawmakers and ambassadors abroad, includingUS Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairBen Cardin,[31]German MPsRoderich Kiesewetter andMichael Roth,[32]Polish senatorMichał Kamiński,[33] and theIsraeli embassy.[34] Roth, the chair of theBundestag Foreign Affairs Committee, urged the LSDP to reconsider their choice and claimed that it would threaten LSDP's membership in theParty of European Socialists.[32] However, no official PES condemnation of the coalition was issued, and the European party congratulated the Social Democrats with the formation of thePaluckas Cabinet on December 12.[35]
In power, the Paluckas Cabinet raised Lithuania's defense funding to it's highest level in the country's history, reformed theretirement fund system, re-established the option for low-income families to choose a public electricity supplier, increasedchild benefits and funding for education, abolished premiums for private healthcare services which are financed by the state healthcare fund, and established a road fund.[36] On 27 June 2025, a taxation reform put forward by the Social Democrats was approved by the Seimas, which established aprogressive taxation system for personal income with three tax brackets, raisedcorporate tax and established new taxes on sugar and non-life insurance.[37]
On 31 July 2025, following a series of investigative reports on his allegedly corrupt business dealings,Gintautas Paluckas announced his resignation as prime minister and chair of the Social Democratic Party. Due to Paluckas's resignation, the LSDP first deputy chairMindaugas Sinkevičius became the acting chair of the party.[38] On 4 August,Rimantas Šadžius was appointed as the acting prime minister of Lithuania.[39]
LSDP is generally described as acentre-left party.[25][40][41] Historically, the party was criticized for lacking commitment tosocial democracy. According to political scientistAinė Ramonaitė [lt], "before their split, the Social Democrats never managed to be a left-wing party. Although they said they were, their policies were right-wing, even the vocabulary was closer to the right".[42] During theEleventh Seimas from 2012 to 2016, when the party played a leading role in theButkevičius Cabinet, it was criticized by left-wing intellectuals such asAndrius Bielskis [lt] and Arkadijus Vinokuras for lacking allegiance to left-wing ideas and for itsneoliberal policies, such as reforms to the Labour Code in 2016 which strengthened the position of employers in workplace relations.[43]
In 2017, afterGintautas Paluckas was elected as the party's chairman, LSDP declared a renewal of its ideology and values, reforming closer to a Western social democratic party.[44] It introduced a new program, in which it affirmed commitment toprogressive taxation, encouragement ofworker cooperatives,women's rights andLGBT rights, andsupport for NATO and theEuropean Union, while at the same time opposing Europeanausterity policies.[45] Several of the party's former leaders and members of the Seimas left the party in 2017 and 2018, including two former Prime Ministers,Gediminas Kirkilas andAlgirdas Butkevičius. Most of them then established the Social Democratic Labour Party, later renamed to theLithuanian Regions Party.[46] However, this renewal was also criticized as incomplete and straddling the fence between progressiveness and the party's previous non-ideologicalpopulism.[47]
After Paluckas' resignation,Vilija Blinkevičiūtė was elected as LSDP's new chairman. The party's program was retained, and conservative former party members such asArtūras Skardžius were not accepted back into the party.[48] However, the party has since focused most on criticism of theHomeland Union and progressive economic proposals over social justice and social reforms. 5 of 13 of the party's members of the Seimas voted against a proposedsame-sex partnership law in 2021, even though the party's program was in favor of same-sex partnerships.[49] TheLeft Alliance was founded in 2022 in response to the Social Democrats' alleged betrayal of left-wing values.[50]
The party supports loweringvoting age to 16 in local elections.[51]
In early 1990s, the party had between 3 and 5 per cent support nationally. It got most support from areas withlight industry (e. g.Marijampolė,Vilkaviškis,Miklusėnai).[52][53] By the end of the decade, LSDP increased their support inRadviliškis District Municipality (probably, at expense ofDemocratic Labour Party of Lithuania (LDDP)).[54]
After merger of these two parties, LSDP gained support from most supporters of LDDP. In early 2010s, the party lost support due to deindustrialisation, rise of public election committees andLithuanian Farmers and Greens Union (e. g. inKaunas, by 2011, got over 12 per cent of votes; however, in 2019, the party received just over 3 per cent of the votes).[55][56]
| Election | Leader | Votes[a] | % | Seats | +/– | Government |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1920 | Unclear | 87,051 | 12.76 (#3) | 13 / 112 | New | Opposition |
| 1922 | Steponas Kairys | 84,643 | 10.42 (#5) | 11 / 78 |  2 | Opposition |
| 1923 | 101,778 | 11.29 (#5) | 8 / 78 | 3 | Opposition | |
| 1926 | 173,250 | 17.03 (#2) | 15 / 85 | 7 | Coalition | |
| 1936 | Banned | |||||
| Banished under theLithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic | ||||||
| 1992 | Aloyzas Sakalas | 112,410 | 6.05 (#4) | 8 / 141 | 8 | Opposition |
| 1996 | 90,756 | 6.94 (#5) | 12 / 141 | 4 | Opposition | |
| 2000 | Vytenis Andriukaitis | 457,294[b] | 31.08 (#1) | 19 / 141 | 7 | Opposition(2000–2001) |
45 / 141 | 21[c] | Coalition(2001–2004) | ||||
| 2004 | Algirdas Brazauskas | 246,852[d] | 20.65 (#2) | 20 / 141 | 1 | Coalition |
| 2008 | Gediminas Kirkilas | 144,890 | 11.72 (#4) | 25 / 141 | 5 | Opposition |
| 2012 | Algirdas Butkevičius | 251,610 | 19.18 (#2) | 38 / 141 | 13 | Coalition |
| 2016 | 183,597 | 15.04 (#3) | 17 / 141 | 21 | Coalition(2016–2017) | |
| Opposition(2017–2020) | ||||||
| 2020 | Gintautas Paluckas | 108,649 | 9.58 (#3) | 13 / 141 | 4 | Opposition |
| 2024 | Vilija Blinkevičiūtė | 240,503 | 19.70 (#1) | 52 / 141 | 39 | Coalition |
| Election | List leader | Votes | % | Seats | +/– | EP Group |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 | Justas Vincas Paleckis | 173,888 | 14.43 (#2) | 2 / 13 | New | PES |
| 2009 | Vilija Blinkevičiūtė | 102,347 | 18.61 (#2) | 3 / 12 | 1 | S&D |
| 2014 | Zigmantas Balčytis | 197,477 | 17.26 (#2) | 2 / 11 | 1 | |
| 2019 | Vilija Blinkevičiūtė | 199,220 | 15.88 (#2) | 2 / 11 |  0 | |
| 2024 | 121,880 | 17.98 (#2) | 2 / 11 | 0 |
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)Congratulations to our member party in #Lithuania, LSDP, who today had their new government programme and cabinet approved!
The coalition, which has a constitutional majority, has been formed by centre-left groupings: the Social Democrats, the Labour Party, Order and Justice, and the Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania (AWPL).
„Iki šios partijos skilimo socialdemokratams niekaip nepavykdavo būti kairiąja partija. Nors ir sakydavo, kad tokia yra, visa politika buvo dešinioji, netgi žodynas buvo labiau būdingas dešiniesiems. Tikėtina, kad situacija ateinančiuose rinkimuose bus kita, nes pati partija atsinaujino ir vis dažniau kalba apie kairiąsias idėjas", – mintimis dalijasi A. Ramonaitė.
(in Lithuanian and English)European Parliament group:Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats | |||||||||||||||
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