Lithuanians came out in large numbers to vote in a tightly contested presidential election on Sunday to replace outgoing Dalia Grybauskaite, the Baltic nation's “Iron Lady” who was one of the European Union's most outspoken critics of Russia.
Still very popular, Grybauskaite, 63, is not eligible to run after two terms. But the top three candidates vying to replace her have pledged to maintain a tough stance against Vilnius' former Soviet master as well as hefty military spending.
Five years after Moscow's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine that sparked fears of further Russian aggression across eastern Europe, the election campaign in Lithuania was dominated by voter anger over economic inequality and corruption.
The race is led jointly by Ingrida Simonyte, 44, a former finance minister in a centre-right government, and Gitanas Nauseda, 54, a former senior economist at a top bank, running neck-and-neck on 22 percent each, according to a Vilmorus/Lietuvos Rytas poll.
All candidates support EU and NATO membership as bulwarks against neighbouring Russia, especially since its 2014 military intervention in Ukraine.
With 1,631 of the country’s 1,972 voting districts
counted early Monday, results provided by Lithuania’s Central Electoral
Commission showed Gitanas Nauseda, a banker-turned-politician, leading
the nine-candidate field with 31.2% of the votes.
Ingrida Simonyte, Lawmaker and former finance minister, was in second with 27.2%.
In
third was Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis at 22.2%, who told
reporters during the vote count that he would resign in July if he
failed to advance to a runoff scheduled on May 26
Support for the remaining six candidates was in single-digit numbers.
Along with picking a president, Lithuanians voted on
a constitutional amendment to allow dual citizenship for hundreds of
thousands of Lithuanians living abroad. Preliminary results indicated
70% of the voters supported allowing dual citizenship, the Baltic News
Service, the region’s main news service, reported.
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