Linas Jegelevičius
After Lithuania’s Central Election Commission (VRK) registered eight candidates to jostle in the country’s presidential election on the 12th of May, analysts agree unanimously that the winner is clear – the incumbent president, Gitanas Nausėda, who, it appears, has not been scathed by the revelation that he hid his membership in the Communist Party and by the scandal that, before 2019 presidential election, he requested State Security Department’s director to collect information on his rivals.
“Although most talk about who will vie in runoff (to be held on the 26th of May– L.J.), I would not rule out that the sitting president will get the job done – gets elected – already in the first round. So big his support is,” Lauras Bielinis, a Lithuanian political scientist and a professor at Vytautas Magnus University, told BNN.
Concurring, Naglis Puteikis, former MP, says that Nausėda’s lead is very big and
“a major earthquake” needs to happen to derail his second term in Daukantas square.
“I am sure the online betting sites that hugely favour Nausėda cannot be wrong,” he told BNN.
Having checked the voter signatures (each candidate had to collect 20 000 signatures supporting their candidacies – L. J.), the VRK, the election watchdog, registered G. Nausėda, I. Šimonytė, I. Vėgėlė, also doctor Eduardas Vaitkus, as well as Dainius Žalimas, law professor and former Constitutional Court chair, Giedrimas Jeglinskas, former NATO assistant secretary general for executive management, Labour Party leader Andrius Mazuronis, and MP Remigijus Žemaitaitis, as presidential candidates.
The other three presidential candidates Gintautas Kniukšta, Arūnas Rimkus, and Valdas Tutkus failed to collect the required 20 000 signatures and had to drop out.
Meanwhile, Aurelijus Veryga of the Farmers and Green Union (LVŽS), having gathered 38 000 signatures, was pulled out from the election by his party which is rallying behind Vėgėlė instead.
The party said its council had to “weighed in on the latest public opinion polls”,
showing that the votes of the party’s supporters are split among Veryga, Vėgėlė and Nausėda.
“The LVŽS perceived that its candidate (A. Veryga) is starting to lag tangibly behind Vėgėlė, thence the move,” N. Puteikis said.
Ramūnas Karbauskis, LVŽS leader, says his party wants to prevent I. Šimonytė, nominated by the ruling TS-LKD, from making it to the runoff stage.
The LVŽS leader also urged other presidential candidates to follow his party’s suit.
Notably, Veryga, the health minister in the 2016-2020 LVŽS-led government, was an ardent supporter of COVID vaccines, meanwhile Vėgėlė rose to prominence as a staunch anti-vaxxer.
And if runoff is needed, the question tantalising both political analysts and voters is this:
who – Vėgėlė or Šimonytė – will make it to it?
“I think their chances are pretty similar,” says L. Bielinis.
“In runoff, besides Nausėda, I see either Šimonytė or Vėgėlė, but my gut feeling is that the former has a slight edge. Voters of her party (TS-LKD, Lithuania’s ruling party – L. J.) are very disciplined,” N. Puteikis told BNN.
The VRK previously asked the Lithuanian Centre for Legal Expertise to assess the voter signatures collected by Mazuronis and Žemaitaitis. The commission had suspicions that some of the signatures collected on paper by the two candidates were forged.
The handwriting examination showed that not all the data on the signature collection sheet of the two candidates were filled in by the signatories themselves. However, the VRK registered Mazuronis and Žemaitaitis as candidates after counting the verified signatures.
The candidates also had to post 9 000-euro deposits to be able to participate in the election.
Having secured LVŽS support, Vėgėlė has refused financial donations offered by the Lithuanian Farmers and Greens party.
“The Lithuanian Farmers and Greens party is considering offering me financial support. I announce beforehand that I will have to reject it,” Vėgėlė wrote in a post on social network Facebook, saying he wants to remain independent, unbiased and not to have any financial commitments to a party.
“The candidate does not want to be seen as the party’s candidate. He has built his campaign as an independent candidate,” L. Bielinis says.
At the moment, I. Šimonytė has the biggest war chest, over 150 000 euros.
Almost all of it was donated by her party, LRT.lt, the website of Lithuanian national broadcaster LRT, reported.
Vėgėlė has almost 130 000 euros. Meanwhile, G. Jeglinskas, the candidate fielded by the opposition party Democrats “For Lithuania”, has a little over 56 000 euros in his campaign account. G. Nausėda has raised over 50 000 euros so far. The war chest of D. Žalimas, the candidate of the liberal Freedom Party, contains slightly less than 50 000 euros. Just over half of it was contributed by the party. E. Vaitkus has more than 36 000 euros in his campaign account. A.Mazuronis has over 2 500 euros, most of which has been contributed by the party. R. Žemaitaitis, who founded the party Nemuno Aušra, has 2 000 euros in his account so far, all of it his own contribution, LRT.lt said.
Asked if the recent resignations of the Cabinet’s two ministers – first of Arvydas Anušauskas, as the defence minister, in March, and, this week, of the education minister, Gintautas Jakštas, who claimed that the PM’s “improper working culture” helped him make up his mind, could damage Šimonytė’s presidential bid, L. Bielinis said: “I don’t think so. It had a short-term effect. Only a minister’s resignation during the election week could potentially make harm to the prime minister.”
If a presidential election had been held in Lithuania at the end of March, most would have voted for Nausėda,
according to a poll by Spinter Tyrimai for the delfi.lt news website.
In all, 30.4% said they would have voted for G. Nausėda, I. Vėgėlė would have gotten 11.9% of votes (13.4% in March) and 10.1% would have gone for I .Šimonytė (12.8%). Next in line would have been D. Žalimas with 5.8% (4.3%), and R. Žemaitaitis with 4.2% (4.7%). A. Veryga would have received 3.1% of votes (2.6%). E. Vaitkus came in seventh with 2.6% (1.7%). Meanwhile, 8.1% said they would have not voted at all, and 16.2% were undecided.