Democratic Labour Party of Lithuania

Democratic Labour Party
Lithuanian name	Lietuvos demokratinė darbo partija
Abbreviation	LDDP
President	Česlovas Juršėnas (2001)
Founder	Algirdas Brazauskas
Founded	19 December 1989
Dissolved	2001
Preceded by	Communist Party of Lithuania
Merged into	Social Democratic Party of Lithuania
Youth wing	Lithuanian Labourist Youth Union
Political position	Left-wing
Colors
Politics of Lithuania Political parties Elections

Democratic Labour Party of Lithuania (Lithuanian: Lietuvos demokratinė darbo partija, LDDP) was the renamed Communist Party of Lithuania.^[1] It was a political party in Lithuania in the 1990s, which claimed to be social-democratic. The youth organization of LDDP was called Lithuanian Labourist Youth Union (Lietuvos leiboristų jaunimo unija).

LLJU symbol

Pennant of the Lithuanian Democratic Labour Party

History[]

The Party emerged from the Lithuanian section of the CPSU in December 1990. Since late winter of 1992, the party overtook Sąjūdis as the most supported political party in Lithuania by the opinion polls.^[2] The LDDP won the 1992 parliamentary election, gaining 43% of the vote giving it 73 seats in the Seimas. It is the best results for any political party in Lithuanian parliamentary election up to this date.^[3] LDDP was led by Algirdas Brazauskas. Because Brazauskas was elected as the first president, he was required to stop his activities in any parties. Adolfas Šleževičius became the party leader and the Prime Minister. After Šleževičius was charged with corruption in 1996, he was replaced by Česlovas Juršėnas.

In 1996 parliamentary election, LDDP got about 9.5% of the votes and won 10 seats in the parliament. In next few years party's support remained the same. Prior 2000 parliamentary election LDDP formed a coalition with the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania, the New Democracy Party and the . Electoral coalition was named after Algirdas Brazauskas and won majority of the votes. In this coalition, parties formed joint list in nationwide constituency, but in single-member constituencies coalition stood only one candidate per one constituency. It was persisted to avoid vote splitting. In the elections LDDP came with 26 seats (the largest number of seats among coalition's parties and third largest number of seats in the parliament).

In 2001, LDDP merged with the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party to form the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania (Lithuanian: Lietuvos socialdemokratų partija).

Popular support[]

In the first half of 1990s, LDDP had around twenty per cent support nationally. This support was not uniform – mainly the party had largest support in large cities with large factories and Russian speaking communities (e. g. Klaipėda). The only exception of large cities was Kaunas, where Sąjūdis (and the Homeland Union) had greater support.^[4][5] In rural areas party's support came from districts with developed industry (e. g. Kelmė district).^[6]

As Lithuania became service economy in late 1990s, party's support declined to ten per cent bar. The other loss of voters came from parties representing Russian speakers (e. g. Union of the Russians of Lithuania). Also, the LDDP lost support to the New Union (Social Liberals).^[7]

List of presidents[]

#	Image	President	Term
1		Algirdas Brazauskas	1990 – 1993
2		Adolfas Šleževičius	1993 – 1996
3		Česlovas Juršėnas	1996 – 2001

External links[]

• Official website archived as of February, 2001

Notes and references[]

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