The liberal Freedom Party, part of the ruling coalition, secured just 3.56 percent of the votes in the mayoral and municipal elections on Sunday. According to the party’s leader, Aušrinė Armonaitė, they "expected better results".
"Naturally, we will now go back and analyse the details of what we could have done differently, but we see no drama in it as we are taking it as a signal that we need to work harder," Armonaitė, who serves as the country's economy and innovation minister, said on Monday.
"For us, as a first-time local election participant, the growth of new leadership was important," she said.
The party will have only one candidate in the election runoff in Elektrėnai, central Lithuania, after Silva Lengvinienė received 21.8 percent of votes in the first round of voting and came in second after Gediminas Ratkevičius of the Liberal Movement.
The party had eight mayoral candidates.
The election runoffs will take place on March 19.
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