Valdas Adamkus

Valdas Adamkus is the president in exercise of the République of Lithuania, re-elected in June 2004 after a first mandate between 1998 and 2003.

Valdas Adamkus was born with Kaunas in independent Lithuania the November 3rd 1926. He flees Lithuania in 1944 for the Germany with his parents. He gains a gold medal and one of money in Athlétisme with the Olympic Games of the Nations occupied in 1948. He follows studies to the University of Munich before joining the the United States in 1949.

Using its capacity with speaking five languages, Adamkus is useful in the military intelligence services of the army of the United States in the Fifties, before resuming its studies and obtaining a diploma of Civil engineering at the Institute of Technology of the Illinois in 1960

In 1970, Adamkus joined the new federal agency of the United States in charge of environmental protection: the Environmental Protection Agency or EPA. Member of the Republican party, it obtains a promotion of the new administration Reagan in 1981 with the post of regional administrator for the North-West of the United States (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin) in load of the quality control of the air, the water and the management of dangerous waste.

The president Reagan decorates Adamkus with the Distinguished Executive Presidential Rank Award , the decoration most prestigious for a civil servant of the federal administration. Adamkus takes its retirement of the federal administration in 1997.

He moves in Lithuania and is made elect president de Lituanie the January 4th 1998 with 50,31% of the voices vis-a-vis the reforming Communist of LDDP Artūras Paulauskas. Adamkus profits from the support of the Union of the Fatherland (TS-LK) of the former president Vytautas Landsbergis and of all the right parties.

Adamkus tries to aspire to a second mandate but is beaten by Rolandas Paksas in 2003 in a campaign where Paksas shows that Adamkus does not know anything with the problems Lithuanian population.

When president Paksas is relieved by the Seimas the April 2004, Adamkus announces that it will aspire to the station only if Paksas is authorized to present itself in spite of its dismissal. Although the Constitutional court prohibits in Paksas to represent itself, Adamkus maintains its candidature and this reversal tarnishes even more the image of the political community and exasperates the voters. Nevertheless, in front of a great number of little known candidates, Adamkus arrives at the head with 30% of the votes at the first turn the June 13rd 2004 and is made re-elect with the second, the June 27th vis-a-vis old the Prime Minister and allied of Paksas Kasimiera Prunskienė with 52% of the voices. Adamkus is invested the July 12th 2004 for a mandate a priori five years but which, taking into account the age and of the health condition of the new president, could not go in its term.

He is honorary member of the Club of Rome.

See too

List of the current leaders

References

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