Opposition parties have agreed to support each other’s candidates in Sunday’s parliamentary run-offs wherever they are running against conservative rivals.
“We are holding today’s press conference to demonstrate to the Lithuanian voters the unity of the opposition parliamentary groups,” MP Rita Tamašunienė of the Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania–Christian Families Alliance (LLRA-KŠS) said on Tuesday.
“In those constituencies where we are competing with the conservatives, we are joining forces to ensure that candidates from the opposition parties represented here win the MP seats, and we support them,” she said.
Also present at the media conference were MPs from the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party (LSDP), the Dawn of the Nemunas (Nemuno Aušra) Party, the Democratic Union “For Lithuania”, and the Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union (LVŽS).
“Wherever we are competing with the conservatives, we are backing candidates from other parties,” Tamašunienė added.
Early voting for the second round of the parliamentary election began on Tuesday morning, with 63 MPs to be elected in single-member constituencies.
The LSDP and the LVŽS have already agreed to support each other’s candidates in the run-offs. The Social Democrats have also reached a similar agreement with the Democratic Union “For Lithuania”.
“Our direct commitment is with the Social Democrats. In all other cases, we are making decisions based on constituencies, and in many cases, things are shaping up similarly to what Rita [Tamašunienė] said,” noted Linas Kukuraitis of the Democratic Union “For Lithuania”.
The Dawn of the Nemunas Party has also previously announced that they will not support candidates from the conservative Homeland Union (TS-LKD), the Liberal Movement, and the Freedom Party in the second round.
“We, the Social Democrats, have the largest number of candidates who have made it to [the second round in] the single-member constituencies. I thank the political forces for supporting us; we are doing the same for them,” said Social Democrat Kęstutis Vilkauskas.
In the second round, the conservative TS-LKD candidates are competing in 33 constituencies. In some of them, they are facing candidates from their current coalition partners – the Liberal Movement, the Freedom Party – or independents.
Seventy-eight out of 141 MPs were elected in the first round.
The LSDP won 19.36 percent of the vote and 18 out of the 70 seats contested in the nationwide party list vote. Two more Social Democrats secured outright victories in their single-member constituencies in the first round.
The TS-LKD came in second with 17.96 percent of the vote, giving them 17 seats in the parliament. One conservative candidate, Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė, was elected in her single-member constituency in the first round.
The Dawn of the Nemunas garnered 14.99 percent of the vote, securing 14 seats.
The Democratic Union “For Lithuania” received 9.24 percent of the vote and eight seats, and the LVŽS won 7.02 percent and six seats.
The LLRA-KŠS failed to clear the five-percent threshold to be allocated seats under the proportional representation system, but two of its candidates were elected in their single-member constituencies.
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