Kazimira Prunskienė obit

Lithuania's first post-independence prime minister Kazimira Prunskienė dies at 83

 She was not on the list.

Kazimira Prunskienė, the first prime minister of independent Lithuania, has died at the age of 83, the Delfi news portal reported on Thursday.

Prunskienė was the first head of the Lithuanian government following the restoration of independence and remained a prominent figure in national politics for several decades.

Born in 1943 in the village of Vasiuliškės, Švenčionys district in northeastern Lithuania, Prunskienė graduated from high school in Vilnius and earned a degree in economics.

She later became a doctor of economic sciences and a professor. In the late 1980s, during the independence movement, she was elected as a people's deputy.

Alongside other signatories, Prunskienė signed the Act of the Re-establishment of the State of Lithuania on March 11, 1990, and shortly afterwards became the first prime minister of the post-independence era.

That year, as Lithuania sought international recognition, she met with the leaders of the United States, Britain and France.

Prunskienė resigned as prime minister in January 1991, shortly before the bloody events of January 13 at the TV Tower, after the Supreme Council overturned a controversial decision by her government to raise food prices.

Prunskienė remained active in Lithuanian politics in later years, serving as a member of parliament from 1996 to 2008 and as agriculture minister from 2004 to 2008.

She led several political organisations, including the Lithuanian Women's Party, the New Democracy/Women's Party, the New Democracy Party, the Union of Peasants and New Democratic Parties, and the Lithuanian People's Party.

During the Soviet occupation, she was a member of the Communist Party.

In 2012, Prunskienė suffered a stroke. The incident impaired her speech, and she did not return to active politics due to her health condition.

Since the restoration of independence, Prunskienė had faced allegations of possible cooperation with the Soviet KGB.

A years-long legal process concluded in January 2011, when the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania issued a final ruling overturning a decision by the Lustration Commission.

The commission had previously unanimously found that the politician had secretly cooperated with the KGB during the Soviet occupation, carrying out intelligence, counter-intelligence and ideological surveillance tasks.