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Politics

As the municipality is the most populous, and as it includes the capital city of Lithuania, it is very important. It has the largest city council. Traditionally, people from the municipality supports rightist parties; especially people from Vilnius. Inhabitants of suburbs more frequently votes for leftist parties. The Lithuanian Liberal Party (now merged into Liberal and Center Union) has been traditionally the most popular, and is also the currently ruling party, led by the charismatic young mayor (the youngest mayor of a European capital city) Artūras Zuokas. However, he was involved in a corruption scandal recently. The court found him not guilty, but the President asked for his resignation. He refused to resign however, and the municipality council refused to vote on his removal.

Because of the political climate and other factors, the municipality has thrived economically (see economics section), but some people oppose how this economic success has been obtained. Therefore there has recently been more polarization , and many people have chosen to vote for the opposition.

Some of the actions of the municipality government were pioneering the ideas in Lithuania or even the world. The innovative actions were such as letting people always see the mayor's office online over a webcam, giving people free bikes to ride with and otherwise promoting bike travel (which was not popular before), banning of any public alcohol consumption (previously not done in Lithuania), installing TV sets in public transportation, allowing tall skyscrapers near city centre (previously undone in Lithuania) and others. As mayor Artūras Zuokas said, it is a problem of Lithuania and other Eastern European societies that one has to prove that the idea has been done in different western European or American cities before anyone takes you seriously that it would work in Lithuania; he thinks that instead Lithuanians should not be afraid to be the first in the world to do various things and let others to follow.

Goals

Declared political goals of Vilnius city municipality are quite ambitions; they includes trying to make the Vilnius city as a major commercial hub in the region which includes Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus and Poland (as Vilnius is a center of area inhabited by tens of millions of people, and cities of Kaunas, Riga, Minsk are not far away. The new city center of Vilnius, a commercial and residential modern district, is being established in formerly empty areas, or areas currently occupied by outdated and obsolete sports facilities and wooden buildings, on the right bank of river Neris. To further establish the stance of the area as the center, the municipality itself moved to a newly built high rise building there. The former Municipality Palace in the Gediminas Avenue was sold and now there is a shopping centre. Although one of reasons for the new center of Vilnius is that it would move away traffic from the old town, the project is still regarded by some as controversial, due to skyscrapers being visible from the old town and supposedly destroying the medieval atmosphere there, skyscrapers being more impressive visually than the traditional symbols of Vilnius such as the Castle of Gediminas and the new districts destroying the wooden architecture of Šnipiškės district, a rare case of XIX age former suburb of Vilnius still remaining as it was unchanged. The municipality government however discounts such arguments as being old-fashioned and states that the municipality must move forward together with time.

Inside Lithuania, the dvimiestis (literally "twocity") idea is a common work between Vilnius city municipality and Kaunas city municipality (second most populous municipality of Lithuania (includes Kaunas city), which is about 100 km from Vilnius city municipality). It includes cooperation such as planning a single major airport between municipalities, also plans are for fast train which would connect them in half an hour so it would make viable to live in one municipality and work in another (currently it takes 1 hour and 20 minutes to go Vilnius-Kaunas by express train and 1 hour and 40 minutes to go by express bus). Overall both municipalities would then have almost a million of people and this would make it easier to advertise it as a common market to possible investors. Currently in major exhibitions and tourist booklets both municipalities already advertises together.

Another idea is that of expansion of the municipality by including town of Lentvaris into it which is currently part of Trakai district municipality. Allegedly, that is supported by people of Lentvaris, according to surveys organised by Vilnius city municipality, mostly because utilities (such as water) are cheaper in Vilnius city municipality as it is highly urban. Trakai district municipality, which already had Elektrėnai municipality seceded from it in 2000 and Grigiškės attached to Vilnius city municipality previously, disagrees with possible secession of Lentvaris, claiming that then the municipality would remain primarily rural and costs for utilities would get even larger for those who'd remain. Also, some opponents of the idea claims that Vilnius city municipality needs Lentvaris only as a cheap ground to plan industry in, as Vilnius city municipality itself is highly urban and large parts of remaining areas are protected as regional parks.

Council

Vilnius city municipality council is the governing body of the Vilnius city municipality. It is responsible for municipality laws. The council is the member of the Association of Local Authorities in Lithuania. Vilnius city municipality council overall has 51 seats. Last elections were held in December 2002, terms are 4 years. The results are here: