Political party in Lithuania
The National Alliance (Lithuanian: Nacionalinis susivienijimas, NS) is a Lithuanian right-wing nationalist political party founded on 7 March 2020 and led by philosopher Vytautas Radžvilas.[3]
History
The predecessor to the party was the Vilnius Forum, later the National Forum, a right-wing political movement which criticized globalization, liberalism and LGBT rights, founded in 2016.[4] The founder of the Forum was Vytautas Radžvilas, a political philosopher, professor and former activist of the Sąjūdis during the Singing Revolution, known for his criticism of liberalism and multiple citizenship, as well as Eurosceptic views.[5] During this period, he gained notoriety for a conflict with the administration of Vilnius University, and he claimed he was removed from lecturing in the university's politics and international relations institute because of his right-wing views.[6]
In 2019, Radžvilas established the public election committee "Vytautas Radžvilas: Recover the State!" (Lithuanian: Vytautas Radžvilas: susigrąžinkime valstybę!) to participate in the 2019 European Parliament election in Lithuania. Though he claimed that the European Parliament is powerless, he likened it to the Congress of the People's Deputies in the last years of the Soviet Union, and that it will determine the future of the organization.[7] The committee received 3.35 percent of the votes and did not win any seats.[8]
After the election, the movement considered unification with 2019 presidential candidate Arvydas Juozaitis and the Christian Union, but it failed due to personal conflict and a separate National Alliance was founded on 7 March 2020.[9] It received 2.21 percent of the vote in the 2020 parliamentary election, and received no seats in the Seimas.[10]
In 2021, the party received personal thanks from Viktor Orban for their endorsement of Hungarian anti-LGBT laws.[2]
Most of the party's votes came from Vilnius. According to political scientist Matas Baltrukevičius, it represents the same electorate as the Lithuanian List, a short-lived anti-establishment party which was founded in 2012 and represented in the municipal council of Vilnius from 2015 to 2019.[11] In the 2023 municipal elections, it won 3 seats on the municipal council of Vilnius City Municipality, its most successful election result. One of the party's councillors, Aleksandras Nemunaitis, was expelled in April 2023, as he joined the effort to nominate Artūras Zuokas as leader of the opposition in the Vilnius municipal council, even though the party opposed this move.[12]
Program and ideology
The National Alliance is generally described as a far-right[2][13] party. It claims to be an all-national movement that seeks to restore the ideas of Sąjūdis, the national movement which was responsible for the restoration of Lithuania's independence in 1990.[14]
It claims to represent a nationalist, socially conservative, Christian worldview, opposes European integration and legalization of multiple citizenship, and demands lustration of all former informants of KGB.[15] Its primary objective is opposition to the national strategy of "Global Lithuania", which seeks to maintain the Lithuanian diaspora as an integral part of a "global" Lithuanian state, and demands a strategy towards limiting emigration and encouraging emigrant return. It is also opposed to LGBT rights and states that its purpose is to defend Christianity in Lithuania and Lithuanian ethnicity from extinction.[16]
Economically, the party holds certain populist and interventionist views, such as instituting progressive taxation, strengthening the social safety net and increasing funding for the education system, although it also seeks to "destroy the mentality of dependency" and cut benefits for certain social groups, such as alcoholics, unemployed persons and single mothers whose children's father's identity is unknown.[17]
It does not seek Lithuania's withdrawal from the European Union, but opposes further integration and demands more powers to be returned to the organization's member states. It also demands that the European Union formally recognize its Christian heritage.[18]
_logo.png){kind=logo}
