The municipal elections in Lithuania are over, but more than half of the municipalities still face the second round of elections to elect mayors, writes the Lithuanian public media LRT.
Out of 60 municipalities, the head of 26 municipalities was already elected on Sunday, the 5th of March, while more than half are facing the second round of elections on the 18th of March. In these 34 municipalities, none of the mayoral candidates received at least 50% of the votes.
In Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, the current vice mayor Valdas Benkunskas and Artūras Zuokas, who held the mayor’s chair from 2000 to 2007, and then from 2011 to 2015, will compete in the second round. Benkunskas won 31% of the votes, while Zuokas – 22%.
Visvaldas Matijošaitis, who won the support of almost 60% of the voters, will be the head of the city of Kaunas for the next four years as well.
Matijošaitis was also the undisputed leader in the pre-election polls. His closest competitor, Aurelijs Veryga of the Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union, won 13% of the vote.
In Klaipeda, in the middle of March, former Klaipeda port manager Arvydas Vaitkus, who is running from the local party Loyal to Klaipeda, and conservative representative Audrius Petrošius will compete for voters’ votes in the second round. Vaitkus won 24% of the votes in the first round, while Petrošius – 21%. The current mayor of the city, Vytautas Grubliauskas, was the fifth, and therefore, after three terms in office, he will leave the mayor’s chair.
In general, the Social Democratic Party (18%) is in the lead in Lithuania after the elections, followed by the TS-LKD with 16% of the vote.
The largest government opposition party, the Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union, won a total of 9% of votes in the municipal elections, and the Liberal Movement – 7% of all voters’ votes.
According to the data of the Central Election Commission of Lithuania, 39.56% of eligible voters voted on Sunday, while 9.41% voted in early voting before the elections, which brings the total number of voters to 48.97% of all eligible voters.
Read full article in English here: https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/1929492/lithuania-s-local-elections-results-summary