Butkevičius, leader of the ruling Social Democratic Party of Lithuania, said so after a meeting of his party's board held on Sunday to discuss Vilnius Regional Court's recent ruling in the Labor Party's fraud and fraudulent bookkeeping case.
"We agreed that the coalition should continue its stable work, and the government as well. I believe that there will be no other thoughts, it will continue its stable work. It was agreed that there are certain moral problems after the court ruling. We believe that the best way would be for First Deputy Speaker of the Seimas, Vytautas Gapšys, to remove himself from his current duties until further investigations are taking place, perhaps they will turn to the Court of Appeal, until the Court of Appeal hears his appeal," Butkevičius told journalists.
"He could suspend himself of his duties for a certain period of time until the judicial process is taking place," the prime minister added.
Butkevičius also underlined that the ruling coalition would not collapse due to the conviction of three politicians of the Labor Party.
"As regards to the three politicians, with certain judicial processes taking place, we deem all this in terms of morality as wrong, but there cannot be chaos in the country because of three politicians or the ruling coalition cannot fail," he said.
Meanwhile Gapšys has said that if there's a wish to renegotiate top parliamentary positions, then the Labor Party might demand all its positions in the government to be renegotiated and demand an additional ministerial position.
"There's a coalition agreement, and if they want to renegotiate the coalition agreement, there's a possibility to do so as we have not used our quotas based on the agreement. We might renegotiate for deputies in the Seimas management to be replaced by positions in the government," he told BNS on Sunday.
Meanwhile the Seimas opposition leaders believe that the Social Democrats should review the composition of the ruling coalition.
Vilnius Regional Court on Friday found Labor MPs Viktor Uspaskich, Vytautas Gapšys and Vitalija Vonžutaitė guilty of fraud and fraudulent bookkeeping case.
Uspaskich, founder of the ruling Labor Party, was sentenced to four years in prison. The court also ruled that Vonžutaitė, named by the court as Uspaskich's right hand, should spend three years behind the bars, the party's former accountant Marina Liutkevičienė was sentenced to one year in prison and the Labor Part's incumbent leader Gapšys received a fine of 35,700 litas (EUR 10,270).
The party as a legal entity avoided prosecution as following reorganization and a merger with the daughter Laborist Party, a new legal entity was formed.
The Labor Party was accused of failing to include more than 24 million litas (EUR 6.7m) in income and 23 million litas in spending in its books in the 2004-2006 period.
Lithuania's ruling coalition consists of the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania, the Labor Party, the Order and Justice party and the Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania.
