New Union (Social Liberals)

The Naujoji sąjunga ( socialliberalai ) ( NS, German: New Union ( Social Liberals) ) was a political party in Lithuania.

The party was founded in 1998 and has since been out of Artūras Paulauskas, of whose personality they depended very strong. Their policy was based on the social-liberal core values ​​: freedom of the individual, social solidarity, welfare and justice. Naujoji Sąjunga was a member of the European Liberal Democratic and Reform Party ( ELDR) and an observer at Liberal International.

In the elections to the Lithuanian Parliament on 10 October 2004, the party went with the Social Democrats of Lietuvos socialdemokratų partija an electoral alliance a, A. Brazausko ir A. Paulausko koalicija 'IP darba Lietuvai "(A. Brazauskas ' and A. Paulauskas ' coalition " working for Lithuania " ), which achieved 20.7 % of the vote. The Naujoji Sąjunga moved with 11 deputies in the 141 -seat Seimas.

In March 2006, it came over the affair of the party chairman Paulauskas, as a result, many MPs from the government parties voted for his resignation as Chairman of Parliament, to quarrel and to the exit of the Social Liberal Party from the coalition. The beginning of 2008, however, the party returned to the government to show up before the upcoming parliamentary elections in light of the politics of the day. Paulauskas was in January 2008, Environment Minister, Algirdas MONKEVICIUS in May 2008 Education and Science Minister.

This calculation did not work out: in the parliamentary elections in October 2008, the party ran as its own list, but missed 3.6% of the valid votes, the 5 % threshold to enter parliament and so clear. Sole Member of the NS is now Valerijus Simulikas, who won his constituency directly.

After the elections Artūras Paulauskas took the political responsibility for the bitter electoral defeat and resigned from the party chairmanship. He was succeeded by interim Algirdas MONKEVICIUS. At the party congress on February 28, 2009 Paulauskas stepped up to the election and was ( compared to 41 for rival candidate Gintautas Kniukšta ) elected with 680 votes again as party leader.

The party had the end of 2008 more than 5,600 members.

On 9 July 2011, the party broke up and went largely into the Darbo partija ( Labour Party ). A minority joined the Liberalų ir centro sąjunga to (Liberal and Centre Union).