Former President Valdas Adamkus has criticised his current successor Gitanas Nausėda for showing favouritism to some parties forming the ruling coalition following Lithuania’s general elections.
On Monday, in the wake of the first round of the vote that allocated 78 seats in the country’s 141-member Seimas, Nausėda said that the Social Democratic Party clearly won and it will be “for the better” to have a government led by them.
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“I think that the president absolutely must not interfere in domestic political affairs, that is what he is the president for, he must represent the nation, he must represent all parts of the society,” Adamkus told the radio Žinių Radijas on Tuesday.
“Showing one’s attitude towards one or another political party is not a presidential position,” he added.
In the former president’s opinion, the head of state should not “look for a coalition".
“It has to emerge when it matures politically on its own,” he said.
Before the first round of the Seimas elections, President Nausėda organised meetings with the leaders of almost all parliamentary parties, but did not meet with Gabrielius Landsbergis, the chairman of the largest ruling party Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats (TS-LKD). The two politicians have not been on good terms throughout the current government’s term.
Representatives of the ruling coalition claimed that the president was interfering in the electoral campaign by starting this cycle of meetings with talks with the opposition parties, an accusation rejected by the President’s Office.
The Social Democratic Party (LSDP) won most seats in the Seimas after the first round of voting, 20. However, run-offs are still to be held in 63 out of 71 single-member constituencies on October 27.
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