Introduction
After a series of drafts, a new Law on Mass Media was adopted in July, 1996. It postulated a state broadcasting reform and transformation of state broadcasting into public broadcasting. The main aim declared was to eliminate political influence on Lithuanian Radio and Television through establishing its governing body, the Council of the National Radio and Television.
However, broadcasting, and especially television, is widely assumed as one of the most powerful media and, perhaps unsurprisingly, parties behind the public broadcasting reform could also assume that it is their vital interest to retain political control of public broadcasting. Only two months after the law was passed, the new Seimas which represents the opposite political orientation changed some articles of the Law on Mass Media thus leading the political system into year-long legal conflict over the legitimacy of two directors-general that were elected according to different versions of the law.
The conflict, however, may be seen not only as the legal struggle but also as the political conflict over the political influence on the mass media. Actually, it is seen this way by most observers, but most of the arguments are based on some common sense assumptions. Basing its arguments on theoretical model, this essay will also be devoted to confirm the hypothesis that the conflict over the legitimacy of the directors-general was not only a conflict on legal matters but could be explained as the political struggle to control Lithuanian Radio and Television.
As long as political control does not mean censorship (hopefully, it does not mean censorship in Lithuania) the very concept of it remains vague enough. This essay will not deal with the essence of this concept but rather will assume that parties know how the political control could be used. In addition, I am not going to present a detailed definition of interests and especially political interests for I maintain that too general definitions such as the one used by Saunders (real interests refer to the achievement of benefits and the avoidance of costs in a particular situation1) are of little value. Therefore I assume that parties (I consider them as main political actors) simply have their interests to pursue certain policies. I also assume that many political actors, especially in the post-communist society, are likely to be in favour of political control of the mass media as long as the control rests with them. For our purpose it would be sufficient to assume that political control of public broadcasting can be exercised through having the Council of the National Radio and Television and the director-general of the Lithuanian Radio and Television reflecting dominant parliamentary political orientation. The last, the bravest and the most important assumption implied in the hypothesis is that main parties in Lithuania do strive for political control of Lithuanian Radio and Television. Therefore the essay will remain to some extent speculative, especially on the level of assumptions. Hopefully, the use of theory will differentiate this essay from previously mentioned common sense approaches.
The main focus of the essay therefore are interactions among various entities involved in the conflict over the formation of the Council and the election of the director-general. These interactions can be defined as power relations where the actors try to cast power to alter or sustain the policy of the Council of the National Radio and Television including the election of the director-general. Thus a theoretical framework concerning power relations will be used. The essay will try to trace the usage of political power in the conflict as opposed to only legal considerations. All the necessary qualifications will be enumerated in the theoretical part of the essay, now it will only be sufficient to state that I assume that this is an observable conflict, though not always overt. This reduces theoretical scope of the essay the theory presented will be confined to two views of power, namely, one-dimensional and two-dimensional approaches. In addition, I do not view and do not use these approaches as contending theories but rather as complementary views on power.
I also chose to present empirical material ahead of theory to give some explanations of the simplification of the theoretical framework. Main reason for this is that the theory is not always sufficient because emphasis in theoretical works is often placed upon the interactions between the society and the political system. In this case, however, I presume that the conflict is inside political system. Empirical data should help to support this latter statement and place some limitations on the choice of theory.
A remark on the terms must also be presented. Trying to simplify the context of the conflict I use terms right-wing and left-wing. The Conservative Party (Homeland Union) and the Christian Democratic Party are considered as right-wing political parties while Lithuanian Democratic Labour Party (LDLP) and Social Democratic Party are labelled as left-wing parties. For the purpose of this essay I would also tend to consider Centre Union as a mostly left-wing opposition party.
1. Empirical Material: Two Directors-General
This essay will deal with the events that occured from July 2, 1996, when the Law on Mass Media was adopted, until December 2, 1997, when the director-general of Lithuanian Radio and Television was finally elected. Since much of the conflict was connected with two laws, their content will be presented first and then the conflict itself will be traced.
1.1. The Laws on Mass Media and on National Radio and Television
Long awaited broadcasting reform formally started on July 2, when a new Law on Mass Media was adopted by the parliament. It is relevant for the subject of this essay because the law set the new status of Lithuanian Radio and Television (LRT). Lithuanian Radio and Television was declared a state-owned public non-profit institution acting according to the Law on National Radio and Television2.
The officially-declared aim of the legislative body was to free Lithuanian Radio and Television from any political influence. This essay will not deal with financial aspects of political influence, that is, with the funding of LRT, however, it is necessary to note that LRT remains dependent upon current governments decisions since the Law on Mass Media named state budget as the primary source of income of Lithuanian Radio and Television. For our purpose, more important is to note that this law created a new institution, the Council of the National Radio and Television, which is responsible for governing LRT.
According to the Article 29, the Council is formed for a period of 3 years. It has 13 members, 3 of them are appointed by the President of Lithuania, 4 by Seimas, and the rest are chosen by casting lots from representatives of 9 public organizations, mainly trade unions such as Journalists Union, Union of Cinematographers etc. The same article requires from the members of political parties to suspend their membership for the period of being appointed as the members of the Council. The Council, inter alia, approves the scope and the structure of programmes of LRT and elects the director-general of LRT.
On October 8, 1996 Seimas adopted the Law on National Radio and Television. It introduced more detailed regulations aimed at increasing political independence of Lithuanian Radio and Television. The Law states that members of Seimas and Government are among those that can not become members of the Council of the National Radio and Television. In addition, it cleared out that candidates for the Seimas-appointed members of the Council are nominated by parliamentary factions.
The Law on National Radio and Television also defined functions of the Council of the National Radio and Television. It has are such responsibilities as forming cultural and political strategy of the programmes, and electing and dismissing director-general of LRT. The law provides that the Council shall invite candidates to the post of director-general of LRT not later than 15 days after the chairman of the Council is elected. Later, the Council shall elect the most suitable candidate. The law does not allow the council to dismiss the director-general except if he or she proves to have insufficient technical knowledge. In the case of conflict between director-general and the Council the latter must pass the document questioned by the director-general for the second time by the absolute majority of votes. Any legal conflict between the director-general and the Council should be resolved in the court.
The law also lists the functions of the director-general of LRT. He or she shall be responsible for the stations everyday activities and represent the institution. There are some other responsibilities, but they are also connected with technical routine and not with political matters. Director-general shall not be a member of any political party.
After the adoption of these two laws, it seemed that a sufficient legal framework was established to carry out the reform of the public broadcasting or, rather, the transition from state to public broadcasting. Furthermore, the laws set the time period during which the new Council should be appointed and the new director-general should be elected.
1.2. The Elections of the First Director-General
A month later, the Council of the National Radio and Television was formed according to the laws. However, not everything went smoothly. Trade unions and the President appointed their preferred members without complications, but a conflict arose in the Seimas.
Discussions in the Seimas started on November 8, in one of the last sessions of the parliament with the majority held by left-wing Lithuanian Democratic Labour Party. The first round of new Seimas elections had already been held, and right-wing parties showed their strong performance which was expected to repeat itself in the second round. Seeing their future role as governing coalition, the Conservative Party and the Christian Democrats declared they will abstain from voting for the new members in the protest against the situation where the old, and not the new, Seimas appoints the members of the Council which will have to co-habitate with the new parliamentary majority. Members of the Council thus were appointed by the majority of the left-wing parties. Leaders of the Conservatives even proposed that the newly-appointed members of the Council should refuse to participate in the activities of the Council because members that were appointed by the Seimas were chosen not in the way the Conservatives and the Christian Democrats preferred3.
The same argument was used even earlier by the leader of the opposition, Vytautas Landsbergis. When the Seimas voted on the Law on National Radio and Television on October 8, the leader of the Conservatives declared he will abstain because the new Seimas will undoubtedly correct some articles in this law4.
Unsurprisingly, it did. On December 5, a new draft Law on the Amendment of the Article 29 of the Law on Mass Media was presented to the members of the Seimas. According to it, the Council of National Radio and Television should consist of 15 persons, each appointed by public organizations and unions of artists. Therefore the number of members of the council should be raised from 13 to 15. However, the value of the new law consisted, according to its initiators, in the fact that the law abandons the practice of political control over LRT since according to it there are no members of the Council appointed either by the Seimas or by the President.
Although it was not surprising that the draft law was presented in the Seimas, many were surprised by the decision of Vytautas Landsbergis, now the Chairman of the Seimas, to adopt it using the procedure of extreme urgency. Parliamentary factions of the LDLP and the Social Democrats, now in opposition, used the tactic once favoured by the right-wing opposition. They refused to participate in the voting while declaring they are not against the propositions of the law per se, but against the procedure. Only later, opposition started questioning the content of the law claiming the principles according to which the new Council had to be formed remained unclear. They also accused that some organizations, namely Citizens Charter, which should have been represented in the Council were clearly the satellites of the Conservative Party5.
After adopting the law, on the same day Seimas passed a decision in which it declared its earlier decision on the appointment of 4 members of the Council no longer valid. In the same decision, Seimas Committee on Education, Science and Culture was empowered to form a new Council before the end of the year. The decision should enter into force since the moment of its adoption.
There were reasons to rush. As the vice-chairman of the Seimas, Andrius Kubilius, stated a day later, the procedure of extreme urgency was used only because the current Council had declared a competition to fill the position of the director-general with the deadline of December 106. His colleague, Arvydas Vidžiūnas, expanded this explanation. According to Vidžiūnas, LRT had lived too long with temporary governing bodies therefore it was unacceptable that newly-elected bodies would be temporary as well. And they would have been temporary in any case since the amendments to the law would have been adopted sooner or later7. Vidžiūnas used political rhetoric to not answer the question whether the organizations that had to appoint the members of the new Council were the satellites of the Conservative party. He said, whoever wants to think so, may think so.8
President Algirdas Brazauskas then entered into stage for the first time in the dispute. He vetoed the law adopted by the Seimas and proposed yet another method of forming the new Council of the National Radio and Television. According to his decree, the Council should consist of 17 members, however, only 9 organizations should delegate their members to the Council on a permanent basis while the rest should be chosen from all other public organizations. Another important amendment was the proposition that since the moment when the law enters into force, all the members of the previously formed Council that were appointed by the President and the Seimas shall cease their activities.
The decree was signed by the president on December 10, the same day when the Council finished accepting programmes of the candidates into the position of the director-general of LRT. The presidential veto meant that the law by the Seimas to alter the composition of the Council had not yet entered into force while the decision by the Seimas that 4 members of the Council who were appointed by the previous Seimas lost their mandate has already entered into force, as it was mentioned, on December 5. Therefore the situation was unclear: if the decision by the Seimas was to be followed, the Council would no longer have enough members to elect the new director-general. However, the decision by the Seimas arguably had no legal ground since the new law according to which this decision was made still had not entered into force because of the presidential veto.
The Seimas rushed again. On December 12, it overcame the presidential veto and reapproved the Law on the Amendment of the Article 29 of the Law on Mass Media. However, one exception was made. The Seimas passed a new law which dealt with the implementation of this latter law. Parliament incorporated into the new law the presidential proposal that the members of the Council who were previously appointed by the President or the Seimas shall cease their activities. The Seimas also changed the Law on National Radio and Television adding one possibility how the members of the Council could be discharged. Now the President had 10 days to sign the laws adopted by the Seimas.
Time became a crucial factor. On the same day, the Council of the National Radio and Television convened. Its members decided to hold an extraordinary meeting on the next day to elect the director-general. This decision, it seems, surprised not only the Conservative party but also the President. A day earlier, representative of the president, Vladimiras Beriozovas, ensured leaders of the parliamentary factions that the Council would not elect director-general. According to him, the President also discussed this with the chairman of the Council, Gediminas Ilgūnas9.
The President signed the new law on the next morning. However, a meeting of the Council was already underway. Brazauskas phoned to the Chairman of the Council and informed him that he had already signed the law according to which this Council is no longer effective and asked members of the council to think whether it was worthy to elect the director-general in such circumstances10.
However, any law must be published in the official bulletin, Valstybės žinios, before entering into force. The extraordinary edition of the Valstybės žinios was scheduled for the next day, i. e. December 14. After the law was published the Council was dissolved on the December 14. But the day before, the Council nevertheless exercised its power and elected the new director-general, Vytautas Kvietkauskas, an experienced journalist who worked in Lithuanian Television for more than a decade but some years ago left Lithuanian Television and became director-general of the private television station Vilniaus TV. What was also of interest, Kvietkauskas ran for the Vilnius City Council as a member of the LDLP list. Thus the newly-elected director-general represented opposite political orientation when compared with the Seimas majority.
1.2. The Second Director-General
When the Law on the Amendment of the Article 29 of the Law on Mass Media entered into force, a new Council had to be formed. Seimas Committee on Education, Science and Culture convened the new Council on December 30. During the first meeting, members of the committee expressed their wish that the new Council would maintain closer links with the Seimas committee11.
According to the law, the Council had to invite candidates to the position of the director-general not later than 15 days after the chairman of the Council is elected (i. e. not later than January 22). However, as it was already mentioned, according to the law, the Council could not dismiss director-general unless he or she proved to be incompetent. The Council tried to find a way out even before the legal collision had actually happened although the majority of its members initially were determined to invite new applicants for the post of director-general without any consultations. On January 15, it asked Seimas how the Law on National Radio and Television should be carried out.
Seimas Legal Affairs Department replied on January 21 that on December 13, the director-general was elected by the Council the composition of which did not correspond with the provisions of the Law on Mass Media since on December 5, the Seimas ceased the activities of 4 members of the Council. Whether the decision by that Council was legal was left to decide to the new Council.
Members of the new Council decided on January 21 that the previous elections were illegal and stated that Kvietkauskas is no longer the director-general of LRT and confirmed this a week later. The Council also decided to invite participants in the competition to fill the vacant position of the director-general. Kvietkauskas took this decision to the district court claiming the dismissal itself was illegal.
Exercising its power prescribed by the law the Council on February 18 elected Arvydas Ilginis to the position of the director-general. Ilginis has been working for Lithuanian Television for about twenty years as a director and producer. He also did not hide his political preferences he said he did not belong to any party but favours the Conservatives.
1.3. The Decisions of the Courts
Two days after the new Council of National Radio and Television declared the election of the first director-general illegal, 31 members of the Seimas asked the Constitutional Court to decide whether the content, the form, the adoption and the entrance into force of the decision by the Seimas on December 5 to discharge 4 members of the Council corresponds to the Constitution. The petition was signed by all members of the LDLP faction and members of other factions except ruling coalition.
As it was mentioned, Kvietkauskas also took the decision of the Council to court. The first hearing was scheduled for March 5, but then it was decided that hearings will resume only after the Constitutional Court adopts its decision on the petition of 31 parliament members.
The Constitutional Court announced its verdict on May 29. It noted that Seimas decision on December 5 was connected with the law adopted by the Seimas on the same day. However, the law entered into force only on December 14 therefore Seimas decision to discharge members of the Council that were appointed by the Seimas was illegal. Furthermore, on December 5 Seimas decided to discharge members of the Council without sufficient legal ground only the amendment to the Law on National Radio and Television which was adopted on December 12 added that the members of the Council may be discharged if legal status of the Council changes. Therefore the Constitutional Court decided that the decision of the Seimas was unconstitutional.
After the decision of the Constitutional Court, hearings in the district court of Vilnius resumed. Finally, on September 9, the court decided that Vytautas Kvietkauskas was legitimate director-general and the Council of the National Radio and Television had to return him to his post. The court postulated that this decision should be implemented immediately. Now there were two legitimate director-general.
1.4. Two Legitimate Directors-General
Hours after the decision in the court, the second director-general, Arvydas Ilginis, declared that with regard that undisturbed functioning of LRT must be ensured, with respect to the laws and decisions by the courts of the Republic of Lithuania and fulfilling my duties defined by the Council of National Radio and Television he will have to stay in his post until the Council decides otherwise12.
Thus the responsibility to implement the ruling by the court now fell on the Council. On September 16, the Council discussed its further actions and decided not to carry out the court ruling (one of the members asked to voted for this decision; only after this proposal was repeated for 7 times, the members voted and it was adopted by 7 votes against 5). The Council also decided to appeal the ruling and connect Councils further actions with the decision of the Court of Appeal (according to the law, however, the ruling of the court shall be implemented even if it is appealed). The Council reaffirmed that all its decisions adopted on January 21 and January 28 were in force. The chairman of the Council, Rimantas Gučas, explained that to implement the decision of the court meant to break some other laws, namely the law on National Radio and Television, and the Council would not do that13. In addition, the Council stated that the decision by the court is incompatible with the laws on Mass Media and on National Radio and Television.
On September 25, the Seimas discussed the problems with Lithuanian Radio and Television. It again changed the laws on National Radio and Television, on Mass Media and on Labour Contracts. Vytautas Landsbergis again asked to use the procedure of extreme urgency. According to the amendments, the Council of National Radio and Television might dismiss the director-general before the end of his or her term if the Council passes a non-confidence motion. The Council also got its right to resign before the end of its term. If the council resigns, the director-general must also resign. The ruling coalition claimed that the amendments were necessary only to fill the legal gaps while the opposition accused the parliamentary majority that these amendments are devoted to solve the present conflict between the Council and the previously elected director-general. Opposition proposed some amendments such as the proposition that after the Council resigns the present director-general shall continue to fulfil his or her duties as a temporary director-general. However, all the amendments by the opposition were rejected.
Even after the amendments to resolve the conflict were passed by the parliament, the Council did not implement the ruling by the court to return Vytautas Kvietkauskas to the position of the director-general of LRT. On October 7, when the bailiffs came to LRT to implement the ruling, the chairman of the Council, Gučas, confirmed that the Council did not intend to use the new possibilities to end the conflict.
Only after the Prime Minister Gediminas Vagnorius said that all decisions in which the Council refuses to obey the ruling of the court were illegal14, the Council on October 17 decided to obey the ruling of the court and returned Vytautas Kvietkauskas to the post of the director-general of LRT. 13 out of 15 members, including the chairman, voted for this decision to end the period of two directors-general. Gučas explained that there is simply no other way out. On the same day, the Council discharged Arvydas Ilginis. Kvietkauskas told that Gučas neither confirmed nor denied that some days later the Council was going to pass the motion of non-confidence and to dismiss him legally15.
Vytautas Kvietkauskas himself did not expect to have normal relations with the Council even though he regained his post. Before the next meeting of the Council on October 21, he presented a letter to the Council in which he urged its members to resign together with the director-general. However, the members of the Council were strongly committed to pass a non-confidence motion thus Kvietkauskas decided to resign alone without waiting for the motion.
Now the Council was free to declare yet another competition for the post of the director-general and to elect the new director-general. On December 2, Arvydas Ilginis was again elected director-general without having any serious competitors. No one now had any complaints about the election or its context. A tale of two directors-general, it seems, came to an end.
2. Theoretical Framework: Power Inside the Political System
The issue of political control of broadcasting was, as it follows from the empirical part, already situated in the political system in the period studied in this essay. Furthermore, it is more interesting to research not how this issue entered the political system and not how the decisions were taken or implemented but how they can be explained. This leads to a conclusion that the power relations approach is arguably the most relevant one.
However, the fact that the issue was already on the political agenda enables us not to consider some aspects of the power relations approach, namely the distinction between elitism or pluralism. More generally, this essay will deal with relations inside the political system, not between the political system and the society or its groups that are situated outside political system. To some extent to say so is part of an elitist approach but what is more important is that power relations inside this elite (if we substitute this word for political system) also matter.
In addition, this essay will not deal with the substantive questions about the nature and meaning of political control over broadcasting or general topics such as societys silent approval of what is happening inside the political system, including the issue of control over radio and television. In general, this essay is not concerned with society-wide arrangements but with more technical and instrumental ways of exercising power. This allows some simplification of the theoretical model and concentrating mainly on the one- and two-dimensional views of power (see below) while also briefly explaining why the three-dimensional approach is irrelevant.
Power is essentially a relationship between two actors. It is defined according to three different views. In a one-dimensional approach, Dahls definition describes power in this way: A has power over B to the extent that he can get B to do something that B would not otherwise do16. One-dimensional approach thus implies that there are differences of preferences between actors. Actors whose preferences prevail in conflicts over key political issues are those who exercise power in a political system17.
Some researchers argue that one-dimensional approach is insufficient since it focuses only on what has happened but not on what did not happen. One-dimensional approach does not take into account that what did not happen is at least as important as what did happen. Power therefore involves also narrowing decision making only to safe issues. Bachrach and Baratz enhance Dahls understanding of power stating that power is also exercised when A devotes his energies to creating or reinforcing social and political values and institutional practices that limit the scope of the political process to public consideration of only those issues which are comparatively innocuous to A18. They also introduce the term non-decisions and define non-decision making as the practice of limiting the scope of actual decision-making to safe issues by manipulating the dominant community values, myths, and political institutions and procedures19.
Initially, two-dimensional view of power was rather similar to what is now called three-dimensional approach to be dealt with briefly below. It focused mainly on the power distribution in the society and between the society and the political system. Non-decision occurs when issues do not even enter political agenda. However, a modified two-dimensional approach stresses the second part of the definition given above, i. e. political institutions and procedures. The definition itself is altered non-decision is now defined as a decision that results in suppression or thwarting of a latent or manifest challenge to the values or interests of the decision-maker20.
There are at least four possible types of non-decisions21. Firstly, force may be used to prevent demands from entering the political process. Secondly, power may be used to deter the emergence of issues, for example, co-opting groups into the decision-making process. Thirdly, rules or procedures may be invoked to deflect unwelcome challenges, for instance, referring issues to committees or attributing labels to the demands. Fourthly, existing rules or procedures may be reshaped as a way of blocking challenges. In addition, non-decision making may be traced when issues are suppressed by anticipated responses. Generally, a modified two-dimensional approach understands non-decisions as taking the form of decisions22.
While one- and two-dimensional approaches deal with the overt and covert conflicts, there may exist one more type of conflict, i. e. latent conflict which is defined as a conflict of wants or preferences between those exercising power and those subject to it were the latter aware of their interests23. Therefore, as Lukes stated, A exercises power over B when A affects B in a manner contrary to Bs interests24. While Lukes emphasizes interests, which is one of the key words also in this essay, his approach is hardly useful for its purposes because interests are understood by the proponents of the three-dimensional approach in somewhat structuralist sense that is irrelevant in this case.
Thus the analysis should be based on some of the aspects of the former two approaches to power. They are not understood as separate theories for the essay has explanation, not testing theories, as its main purpose. Both approaches are considered as complementary and contributing to the explanation of the empirical material.
3. The Analysis: Political Interests and Power
The situation with the Council of National Radio and Television and with the director-general of LRT involved many legal decisions and some legal battles. However, as it was already stated, the main hypothesis of this essay is that those legal decisions hid the political conflict to control National Radio and Television. The parties used their possibilities to cast power to achieve their goal which was defined in the introductory part of the essay as having both the Council and the director-general reflecting dominant parliamentary political orientation. Now these propositions will be examined and tested in greater detail.
3.1. Application of One-dimensional Approach
All the legal acts are the expression power as defined by the one-dimensional approach if their implementation is ensured. Parliamentary parties exercise power in this sense quite often. Therefore power was exercised when parliamentary or presidential or certain judicial decisions were adopted. This is, to be sure, quite mechanistic interpretation of power. However, one-dimensional approach has some other aspects, namely, that power is exercised when conflicts are resolved in favour of those whose preferences prevail.
In this sense power was also exercised somewhat mechanically. All decisions by the Seimas were simply expressions of the majority will while the minority chose not to participate in the conflict. The Law on National Radio and Television was passed by the left-wing majority of the Seimas with right-wing parties abstaining. The same was true when Seimas appointed four members of the Council. Right-wing majority passed the amendments to the Law on Mass Media and decision to discharge members of the Council with left-wing opposition abstaining from voting. The decision of the Constitutional Court was initiated by only left-wing minority. Then again when Seimas intervention was necessary right-wing majority passed additional amendments without considering options by political opponents.
This allows to mark that on the parliamentary level the conflict was clearly situated along the rightleft political cleavage. No attempts to achieve consensus were noticeable. Not only governing parties relied on their mechanical majorities to enforce their preferences but the opposition was also waiting for the chance to implement their own preferences without reconciling them with the majoritys proposals. Preferences of either left-wing or right wing parties clearly prevailed in the conflict thus it is the left-wing or right-wing parties that exercised power on the parliamentary level. Having in mind the assumption that it was the interest of the parties to ensure political control of the national broadcaster one tentative conclusion can be drawn. On the parliamentary or legal level, main parties succeeded in casting power on the Council and on the opposing political groups in their interest to ensure political control of LRT.
It is much more speculative to define power casting as reflecting rightleft political distinction on the level of the Council of National Radio and Television. While some organizations that were represented in the reformed council arguably are of right-wing political orientation (it is, however, difficult to prove this), such as Citizens Chart and Association of Journalists, political affiliation of others is unclear. Therefore assertions about right-wing domination in the reformed Council or left-wing domination in the initial council would be unsupported. Nevertheless, the initial Council that was formed by only left-wing parliament members elected by a large majority of votes (94 out of 100 points available25) as director-general a person who was affiliated with the leftist LDLP. The reformed Council that was formed after the decision by only right-wing members of Seimas used its power to elect by a large majority of votes (113 points out of 13026) a candidate who did not hide his rightist preferences. While this may be held as coincidence these decisions might have favoured opposition leftist parties in the first case and ruling rightist coalition in the second case.
Looking at the actual decisions from the one-dimensional point of view, it can be argued that decisions affecting the control of LRT were clearly made on the party lines. This contradicts the main purpose of the laws and their amendments stated by the previous and current Seimas that public broadcasting should be controlled by public organizations and not by political entities.
3.2. Two-dimensional View on the Issue of Political Control
Having assumed that political control of the Council of National Radio and Television is one of the parties interests we can now look at how parties tried to hold control of the Council in the political battles. To redefine the task using the concepts of the reformed two-dimensional view on power, this part of the analysis will deal with how parties attempted to suppress or avoid challenges to their interests, that is, how they made non-decisions.
Four possible types of non-decisions were enumerated. Some of them are relevant in our case. Perhaps the one that was most clearly observed was that existing rules or procedures were reshaped seeking to block possible challenges. This reason underlay basically all relevant Seimas decisions except perhaps the first decision, that is, the adoption of the Law on Mass Media in July, 1996. The next decision, the adoption of the Law on National Radio and Television, was already influenced by the mood of forthcoming Seimas election when current left-wing majority was supposed to loose power. Even though the leader of the prospective majority Vytautas Landsbergis warned that the new Seimas will undoubtedly change some propositions of this law which concern the formation of the Council (7 members appointed by political institutions), the Seimas decided to adopt the challenge for the upcoming parliament. While this may be not a non-decision in the strict sense for the Seimas did not change any existing rules, the future consensus that political appointments to the Council should be given up was already clear at that time. The Seimas thus passed the law that was in advance colliding with upcoming decisions.
Yet this non-decision worked in the way it was believed to. Before the newly elected Seimas convened, the Council was formed and arguably was exerting a threat to the new Seimas because their political orientations might have been opposite and there was no legal way to force the Council and especially the director-general it was going to elect to reflect the political orientation of the Seimas majority. Thus the laws were changed to block possible election of the unfavourable candidate. When the time factor became crucial, yet another non-decision, though of much smaller scope, was made an extraordinary edition of the official bulletin, Valstybės žinios, was published.
When all the legal conditions were introduced to form a new Council and to elect a new director-general, activity of the Seimas decreased. Another decision of the parliament, that can also be classified as non-decision, was adopted more than nine months later when again the threat to the dominant interests emerged after the court decided to return the dismissed director-general to his post. The laws were changed to enable the Council to dismiss the director-general, this time legally.
This latter decision can also be classified as trying to deflect threatening challenge of the return of the LDLP-affiliated candidate. While the official explanation of the amendments to the laws that were passed last September was that it was necessary to fill the legal gaps, this decision by the Seimas allowed to evade friction by the leftist director-general and rightist majority in the Seimas. However, the decision to dismiss Kvietkauskas again, in this case legally, was, perhaps unsurprisingly, delegated to the Council which was clearly hostile to the first director-general.
Even before this decision was adopted, there was one case that can also be viewed as an attempt to deflect the challenge. The Council refused to obey the ruling of the court to return Kvietkauskas to the post of the director-general. The Council explained that implementation of this ruling would force it to break other laws and that the ruling does not correspond with some of the laws. Later this motivation changed into claims that the ruling must be approved by another court to be implemented. In any case, the Council tried to deflect the challenging decision it had to take immediately to another institution. However, this non-decision is questionable since there are very strong doubts about whether it was legal at all.
Generally, the timing itself of the Seimas discussions may be considered as yet another and rather serious attempt to reroute political issues. While the issue of political control of the national broadcaster was never excluded from the political agenda (it became widely discussed again during the presidential campaign and especially after the scandalous screening of the film about Vytautas Landsbergis on Lithuanian TV on December 17) the expression of this clearly political conflict in the Seimas was only casual. After the adoption of the initial laws there were only two crisis periods when the Seimas became involved in the conflict. In the beginning of December, 1996, and in the end of September, 1997, the parliament discussed the issues related with National Radio and Television using procedure of extreme urgency. These discussions were held only on the occasions when an urgent and concrete need had emerged. It was some kind of reactive decision-making that, combined with the mechanical way of passing those decisions, produced the result where the parliamentary agenda and especially its decisions were almost closed for the alternative proposals that might have threatened majoritys interests (this, however, did not prevent opposition from winning the case in the Constitutional Court). In addition, some decisions may be classified as non-decisions on the basis of the labels criterion. The Conservatives used labelling to block the proposals by the opposition. Replying to the critique by the left-wing parties they asserted that the opposition was trying to retain the state control over Lithuanian Radio and Television. No proposals by the opposition were accepted.
On the rest occasions, the Seimas referred competence on the subject to the Council which is in a sense far less representative and less open than parliamentary procedure. This may also have helped to block unwanted grievances or prevent possible decisions that were not approved by the ruling majority.
The latter observations may imply the idea that political discussions in the parliament were a necessary way of ensuring that no single group controlled Lithuanian Radio and Television. This idea might seem contradictory to the proposal to free public broadcasting from political control. However, the first part of the analysis revealed that in any case the problem was politicized, and politicized in a clearly partisan way even if the above-mentioned proposal was officially declared. The second part unveiled that this proposal itself might have been instrumental in deterring possible challengers to the interests of the parliamentary majority. The second part of the analysis concentrated on mostly technical aspects of exercising power according to the interests of the political actors. It showed that at least some of the actions connected with the public broadcasting reform can be classified as non-decisions, that is, decisions that were taken to prevent challenges to the interests of the decision-makers. The main actors (governing majorities and the opposition) thus exercised power not only to adopt the laws but also to protect their own interests. Assuming that political control of national broadcaster was initially one of their interests the analysis revealed that political power was cast to further this interest.
The analysis confirmed the proposition that the conflict was not only legal but also political. Behind legal collisions a political struggle to protect parties interests from the challenges and to further them that is, to non-decide and to decide can be traced.
Conclusions
This essay examined the issue of the political control over the Lithuanian Radio and Television. Last summer, the broadcasting reform was declared. Its main aim was to protect national broadcaster from political influence thus reforming state radio and television into public radio and television. According to the laws, it had to be governed by the Council that was made from the representatives of public organizations and persons appointed by the President and the Seimas.
However, the argument for depoliticization of public broadcasting soon became itself an instrument to seek political control of LRT. It was used to block the decision by the Council of National Radio and Television to elect the director-general who could not have been dismissed for political reasons. However, after the presidential veto the situation complicated and the Council on the last day of its existence elected the director-general. The new Council was formed which declared some decisions by the previous Council illegal. A new director-general was elected who reflected political orientation of the parliamentary majority while his predecessor represented political orientation of the former majority. The district court then returned the first director-general to his post forcing the Seimas to adopt some amendments to allow the Council to dismiss the director-general legally. After the director-general resigned the second director-general was again elected.
It was argued in this essay that the issue of political control was a power issue and that it was inside political system. Therefore the theoretical framework had to concentrate on the power relations while some features of the theory should have been omitted. It was argued that the most relevant approaches were so called one-dimensional and two-dimensional models which dealt with furthering the interests by forcing to do something that would otherwise have not been done, and with protecting those interests from challenges, respectively. The concept of non-decision was presented and some types of non-decisions were enumerated.
Analysis of the empirical material showed that legal decisions in the parliament were taken in a mechanical way along clear party affiliation lines. The majority never accepted any proposals by the opposition. The more careful analysis proposed that this might had been done as a way of preventing unwelcome challenges to the majoritys interests. The non-decisions occurred at almost every stage of parliamentary involvement and in some instances of the Council decisions. Some types of non-decisions were taken, such as reshaping existing rules or invoking regulations to reroute possible challenges.
Since not only decisions were adopted but numerous non-decisions were observed the conclusion was made that parties really tried to protect their own interests in the political battle. Thus the hypothesis that the conflict over the leadership of LRT was not only legal but also a political conflict was confirmed. This was done on the assumption that the interest which the parties were trying to further or to protect was political control of public broadcasting.
The essay tried to explain the reasons behind legal decisions. However, this explanation may be incomplete because of the limitations imposed by the theoretical model and insufficiency of empirical material as the subject is a rather sensitive political issue which is often dealt with confidentially. Nevertheless some of the explanations presented might help enhance understanding about the public broadcasting reform.
Notes
1 Ham Ch., Hill M. The Policy Process in the Modern Capitalist State. 2nd edition. New York a. o., 1993. P. 75.
2 Article 29 // Law on Mass Media. Vilnius, 1996. All legal documents quoted are translated from Lithuanian by the author of the essay. Their source is Lithuanias Seimas worldwide web site at www.lrs.lt/DPaieska.html.
3 Pečeliūnienė L. Politinių vėjų tebeblaškoma taryba kurs nacionalinį radiją ir televiziją // Lietuvos aidas. 1996. November 9. P. 1, 2.
4 Gečas K. Seimas nutarė paskelbti referendumą ir dėl indėlių // Lietuvos rytas. 1996. October 9. P. 2.
5 Tai, kas valdžiai demokratija, opozicijai buldozeris // Lietuvos rytas. 1996. December 7. P. 3.
6 A. Kubilius: Visuomenės informavimo bei Radijo ir televizijos įstatymų pataisos yra istorinės // Lietuvos aidas. 1996. December 7. P. 2.
7 Ibid.
8 Gečas K. Politikai atsisakė valdyti televiziją // Lietuvos rytas. 1996. December 6. P. 2.
9 Pečeliūnienė L. Plačiausios demokratijos mūšis dėl televizijos // Lietuvos aidas. 1996. December 12. P. 1, 2.
10 Šimonienė T. Vargas dėl RTV generalinio direktoriaus // Lietuvos aidas. 1996. December 17. P. 2.
11 Pečeliūnienė L. Aprimus aistroms pradėjo dirbti naujoji NRTV taryba // Lietuvos aidas. 1996. December 31. P. 2.
12 Jonušaitė N., Steponėnaitė G. V. Kvietkauskas: aš grįšiu. A. Ilginis: aš neišeisiu: Lietuvos radijui ir televizijai vadovauja jau du generaliniai direktoriai // Lietuvos rytas. 1997. September 10. P. 2. I must admit I could not correctly translate some statements by Ilginis.
13 Urbonaitė A. Lietuva stumiama teisinio nihilizmo link: Vakar NRTV taryba balsų dauguma nutarė nepaisyti įstatymo ir nevykdyti teismo sprendimo // Lietuvos rytas. 1997. September 17. P. 1, 2.
14 Grumadaitė R., Urbonaitė A. NRTV vadovų byloje apygardos teismas žodžio netarė // Lietuvos rytas. 1997. October 17. P. 3.
15 Urbonaitė A. Nacionalinio radijo ir televizijos taryba ėmėsi įgyvendinti paklusimo teismui scenarijų // Lietuvos rytas. 1997. October 18. P. 2.
16 Ham Ch., Hill M. Op. cit. P. 66.
17 Ibid.
18 Ham Ch., Hill M. Op. cit. P. 67.
19 Ham Ch., Hill M. Op. cit. P. 68.
20 Ham Ch., Hill M. Op. cit. P. 6869.
21 Ham Ch., Hill M. Op. cit. P. 69.
22 Ham Ch., Hill M. Op. cit. P. 78.
23 Ham Ch., Hill M. Op. cit. P. 70.
24 Ham Ch., Hill M. Op. cit. P. 7071.
25 Gadeikis L. Lietuvos radijo ir televizijos direktoriumi išrinktas Vytautas Kvietkauskas // Lietuvos aidas. 1996. December 14. P. 1, 2.
26 Šimonienė T. Išrinktas Nacionalinio radijo ir televizijos direktorius // Lietuvos aidas. 1997. February 19. P. 1.
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