Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda became a member of the CPSU in 1988, and in 2019, when he ran for president, he hid this fact. Documents confirming this were published by Lithuanian journalist Dovydas Pancerovas.
The papers came to him after the Lithuanian Special Archives published a list of people awaiting deportation. According to the journalist, “the experts do not question the authenticity of these documents”.
“I don’t know how Gitanas Nauseda really felt during the Sąjūdis rallies, but documents show that when Sąjūdis was founded, he joined the Communist Party. His application for admission to the Communist Party was filed on May 20, 1988, and the party card was issued on June 27, 1988,” Pancerovas wrote on Facebook (owned by Meta*).
Sąjūdis (of the Lithuanian “Movement”) is a socio-political organization in Lithuania which led the process of secession from the Lithuanian SSR and the establishment of the Republic of Lithuania in 1988-1990. The Sąjūdis initiative group included members of the Communist Party of Lithuania, the local branch of the CPSU. On August 23, 1988, a mass rally organized by the movement took place in Vingis Park in Vilnius, attended by about 250,000 people. The rally in Vilnius is called a signal to the international community that Sąjudis has become an authoritarian political party, ready to confront the CPSU.
The journalist also published an electronic questionnaire from presidential candidate Nauseda, which he completed before the elections. There, in the column “affiliation to political parties and organizations”, it says “not indicated”. At the same time, Pancerovas cited as an example a similar questionnaire from former head of state Dalia Grybauskaite, which indicated party affiliation.
Pancerovas noted that he does not think or claim that “Communist Party membership is an indelible stain, but in his political speeches President Nauseda tends to associate himself with Sąjūdis and Sąjūdis rallies, whereas in fact at that time he chose the other side of the barricades”.
The journalist also published President Nauseda’s response to the concealment of information about belonging to the CPSU. The politician said he made no secret of the fact that he joined the party in 1988, and relevant documents are kept in state archives and are unclassified.
“Gitanas Nauseda did not participate in CPSU activities at the beginning of the Sąjūdis. The question of belonging to a particular political party or organization is not included in the candidate’s questionnaire,” Pantserovas quotes.
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