The enthusiasts' joy was soon extinguished by both the author of the post and Grybauskaitė's spokesperson, who assured that the former Head of State's decision remains unchanged, as she has already retired from active politics and does not intend to take part in the elections.
However, the chances of Grybauskaitė running again in the presidential elections and winning them are also being extinguished by the experts interviewed by the news portal lrytas.lt, who have assessed the causes of the „Grybauskaitė phenomenon“ and whether this phenomenon would actually translate into real votes.
It was disappointing
Although Grybauskaitė announced her retirement from active politics as early as last July, the posting of a photo by former advisor L.Zakarevičius, which includes other members of the former team, such as Daiva Ulbinaitė, Mindaugas Lingė and others, has made some people in the country speculate that her decision may have changed.
However, after admitting in his Facebook post that he was only joking about the new election campaign in this way, Zakarevičius himself did not hide his wish that Grybauskaitė would still change her mind about leaving politics.
And this, despite the rather rare public appearances of the former head of state, seems to be the hope of a large part of the public, who still identify Grybauskaitė as their preferred candidate in the presidential elections. How should this be explained?
The image that has been created
Matas Baltrukevičius, an associate analyst at the Vilnius Institute for Policy Analysis, argued that Grybauskaitė was the President who shaped the image of what the leader of the country should be like for practically a whole generation of people.
„However, ten years in office is a long time. Grybauskaitė had her own leadership style, which was acceptable to many in society,“ the political expert told the news portal lrytas.lt.
Baltrukevičius noted that Grybauskaitė knew how to emphasise her independence the most of all the non-partisan candidates. Moreover, according to the expert, the former head of state deliberately did not seek either friends or enemies,
„Although in the end, probably practically all the parties were in her crosshairs from the negative side, at least for a while“, he recalled.
The Grybauskaitė phenomenon
At the same time, Mindaugas Lapinskas, a communication expert, assessed the phenomenon of Grybauskaitė and said that people tend to idealise the past.
„If you ask people if, for example, ice cream was tastier in their youth than it is now, probably 70% of them would say that it was tastier,“ Lapinskas said.
The expert interviewed by lrytas.lt noted that the same is also true in other countries. For example, surveys conducted in the United States show that all former US presidents are more popular now than they were during their reign.
„People would like to come back because the acrimonious details of the past fade away and remain a kind of illusion.
And Grybauskaitė is also riding on this phenomenon because when she was President, the conjuncture was quite suitable – there were no people who were boldly opposed to her, the political parties changed, but the prime ministers went to shake hands and did not even question what she was doing or what she was writing in her email. And that is why she was „riding on the wave“,“ Lapinskas assessed.
Victory would not be guaranteed
However, despite the nostalgia of the population, the communications expert would not give any guarantees that Grybauskaitė would necessarily win the presidential elections for a third time – which, according to him, is the main reason why the former President is unlikely to try again.
„Let's remember how Grybauskaitė became President in 2009 – the elections were held in June, but a year before the elections, she did not seem to be in a great hurry or to be consistently building her career towards the presidency. Not only did she not announce it, but she was demonstratively on the sidelines, waiting for the situation to mature.
Grybauskaitė is an excellent tactician (a slightly worse strategist, it seems), and as a good tactician, she would wait for the right moment. In this case, if the right moment comes, with four-to-one odds, then she might think about running,“ Lapinskas said.
„However, there is a saying that „all political careers end in failure“ because usually, politicians stay in politics until they eventually lose the elections. So Grybauskaitė, thanks to both the Constitution and her political acumen, has been quite successful and probably would not want to end her political career in a fiasco,“ he said.
Lapinskas also speculated that Grybauskaitė would not want to run for the post again because of a potentially difficult election campaign.
„We haven't seen much of Grybauskaitė as a fighter. She was lucky enough, and the conjuncture was attractive enough, so we don't know what kind of fighter she is or how much she could withstand aggressive criticism from her opponents. If she were to go, she would be like Ignas Vėgėlė, who would not hold his tongue, who would list all kinds of sins, both past and present, and who would stick labels on them“, he noted.
He unequivocally denied
Baltrukevičius also does not believe that Grybauskaitė could change her mind about running for office, noting that the former head of state has repeatedly, clearly and unequivocally denied the rumours of another term in office.
Moreover, the political expert noted that Grybauskaitė's attempt to run again would certainly be subject to a constitutional challenge, although Baltrukevičius himself stated that he believed that the Constitution provides for the possibility to run after a break.
„However, Grybauskaitė would need a clear justification of what she has failed to do in ten years before she would need to run again“, he said.
Questions on the European Parliament
It is true that in 2024 there will be not only presidential elections but also elections to the Seimas and the European Parliament (EP).
However, Lapinskas is convinced that Grybauskaitė, a former member of the European Commission (EC) and President of the country, is no longer an EP-level politician.
And if she wanted to run for the EP, Grybauskaitė would either have to join a party, which would make her no longer the President of Lithuania but a political power, or form her own political movement, which would look rather strange just because of the EP elections.
Baltrukevičius does not take the EP scenario seriously either – according to him, Grybauskaitė has already reached the top of the political Olympus, so that EP elections would be a step backwards.
„Grybauskaitė's ambition might make international posts more interesting, but her non-partisanship and frequent radicalism of her positions are weaknesses that hinder the use of that potential, so things will probably stay as they are now,“ Baltrukevičius said.
