Remigijus Žemaitaitis, leader of the Nemunas Dawn political party, rented a car to his own party under a contract worth 31,500 euros, raising questions about transparency and potential conflicts of interest, a civic watchdog group said Wednesday.
The civil initiative Viešpirkiai said Žemaitaitis signed a car rental agreement with his party on January 17, 2024, under which the party paid more than 3,100 euros per month. The contract was in force until November 13, 2024, but was made public only on January 29, 2026.
Viešpirkiai said the case may not be isolated. According to the group, a second car rental contract was in effect from March 12 to November 13, 2024, under which party member Daiva Petkevičienė rented a vehicle to the party for just over 18,000 euros, or about 2,200 euros per month.
The cars were likely used for campaigning for the parliamentary elections held in October 2024.
“These data point to a difficult-to-justify practice in which a political party enters into contracts with its own leadership or members,” Viešpirkiai said in a statement. “This raises serious questions about potential conflicts of interest, transparency and political accountability.”
Žemaitaitis did not deny the rental arrangements in comments to BNS, saying the party made the decision because it was unable to rent vehicles from commercial companies at the time.
“Yes, that’s how we travelled when we founded the party – I as party chairman and Daiva as the representative of the Samogitia region,” Žemaitaitis said. “It was done for work purposes because we had no money, nothing.”
He said companies such as Bolt and BRC were unwilling to rent cars to the party, prompting a decision to use personal vehicles under rental agreements to avoid accusations of using private cars for party business without proper documentation.
Žemaitaitis said the rental price reflected high fuel and vehicle maintenance costs, adding that he personally drove between 70,000 and 80,000 kilometres during that period.
He said the contracts were terminated after the party entered parliament and began receiving state funding. Last year, Nemunas Dawn received about 483,700 euros in state subsidies.
Meanwhile, the opposition Liberal Movement said Wednesday it had formally asked the Central Electoral Commission, the State Tax Inspectorate and the Chief Official Ethics Commission to investigate whether Žemaitaitis violated laws governing political party financing and other regulations.
Liberal Movement leader Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen said in a Facebook post that Žemaitaitis had publicly declared in 2024 that he was receiving unemployment benefits, urging institutions under the Ministry of Social Security and Labour to also investigate.
“These facts should be examined not only by the Tax Inspectorate,” Čmilytė-Nielsen wrote. “Such use of party funds should raise questions for tax authorities, and an investigation is also needed into how a person receiving this level of income from car rental could simultaneously receive unemployment benefits.”
Žemaitaitis publicly said in the summer of 2024 that he began receiving a monthly unemployment benefit of about 1,200 euros starting May 22, according to Čmilytė-Nielsen.
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