By obtaining first place with 52 of the 141 seats in the Seimas (the Lithuanian Parliament), at the end of the second round of the legislative elections, Sunday October 27, the Lithuanian Social Democrats won a clear victory. “The election results show that Lithuanians, wherever they live – in cities or villages – want change and need a completely different government”declared, at the end of the evening, the leader of the Social Democratic Party, Vilija Blinkeviciute (64 years old).
Moments earlier, the leader of the Fatherland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats, Gabrielius Landsbergis, the outgoing foreign minister, had conceded defeat. At the head of a center-right government led since 2020 by Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte, her party only comes in second position, with 28 seats. In a brief speech, Landsbergis called on social democrats to form “responsible government” et “not to reverse direction” taken by the country in recent years.
On Sunday evening, Vilija Blinkeviciute, MEP since 2009, met the leaders of the Union of Democrats for Lithuania (center left), which came in fourth place (14 MEPs), and the Lithuanian Agrarian Union and Greens ( center right), which ranks sixth (8 deputies), with a view to forming an alliance. Even if the negotiations promise to be difficult, notably due to the personal animosity between the leaders of these two parties, such a coalition would have the merit of having a majority in Parliament.
Worrying deterioration of public services
In doing so, the future government would therefore not need to rely on the support of the populist party Nemuno Ausra (Dawn of the Niemen River), created in November 2023 and came in third position with 15% of the votes (20 deputies). Excluded from the Freedom and Justice party (liberal conservative) in May 2023, after making anti-Semitic comments on social networks, its leader, Remigijus Zemaaititis, is currently on trial for inciting racial hatred by a court in Vilnius. In May, he obtained 11% of the votes in the presidential election, won by the outgoing president, Gitanas Nauseda (independent).
Read also | In Lithuania, President Gitanas Nauseda obtains a new mandate
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According to political scientist Ramunas Vilpisauskas, the radical party owes its excellent score to its anti-system speech: “He is not yet considered part of the establishment and the criticism of traditional groups towards him has helped to keep him in the spotlight, while his program remains very vague. »
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