Lithuanian lawmakers on Tuesday adopted a package of amendments to the election law, key among them is the requirement that candidates indicate membership in the Soviet Communist Party.
Currently, candidates running for elected office are required to state present party affiliations, but not political organisations they were members of in the past.
One proposal by the conservative Homeland Union (TS-LKD), requiring candidates to put their Communist Party membership on election posters, was rejected, however.
Under the adopted amendments, candidates will be required to declare their former membership of political organisations, as well as the duration of their membership.
The bill was passed on Tuesday by a vote of 110 in favour and one abstention.
At the same time, 81 MPs voted in favour of the more restrictive conservative proposal, three opposed and 15 abstained, but a constitutional law such as the Electoral Code requires at least 85 votes to be amended.
“They will still have to indicate their former Communist Party affiliation, just like all the other parties they belonged to, but there will be no information on the poster,” Andrius Vyšniauskas, conservative MP who authored the bill, pointed out.
Last month, 15min.lt reported that 20 Lithuanian MPs were previously members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, although only two of them indicated this affiliation in their candidate questionnaires. Earlier this year, it emerged that President Gitanas Nausėda had also applied to join the Communist Party in the late 1980s, but did not mention it anywhere in his biography.
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