{"id":400765,"date":"2024-10-28T13:42:08","date_gmt":"2024-10-28T12:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2024\/10\/28\/lituania-elezioni-2024-vince-sinistra\/"},"modified":"2024-10-31T18:02:05","modified_gmt":"2024-10-31T17:02:05","slug":"lithuania-confirms-turn-to-the-left-social-democrats-win-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/2024\/10\/28\/lithuania-confirms-turn-to-the-left-social-democrats-win-elections\/","title":{"rendered":"Lithuania confirms turn to the left. Social Democrats win elections"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – With the second round of elections yesterday<\/strong> (Oct. 27), Lithuania confirmed the turn to the left<\/a><\/strong>. After the first vote on Oct. 13, the Baltic country reaffirmed its preference for the Social Democratic LDSP party, led by Vilija Blinkeviciute<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The second ballot is part of the process of forming the Seimas<\/strong> (Lithuania’s single-chamber parliament):\u00a070 seats<\/strong> are allocated by a popular vote on a single national constituency<\/strong>, which took place two weeks ago and had already seen the first success of the left<\/strong>. The remaining 71<\/strong> are distributed through as many uninominal constituencies<\/strong> and, lacking\u00a0an absolute majority, a runoff between the two candidates with the most votes.<\/p>\n

After the second ballot, the result is even more evident: out of the 141 total seats, 52 go to Blinkeviciute’s party<\/strong> and 28<\/strong> to the Union of the Fatherland (TS-LKD)<\/strong>, the party of outgoing premier Ingrida Simonyte. The populist Nemuno ausra <\/i>(PPNA)<\/strong> party, which, between the two polls, won 20 seats, followed. Of the two parties in coalition with the Union of the Fatherland, the Liberty Party (LP)<\/strong> did not<\/strong> surpass the 5 percent bar<\/strong> on the first ballot, and the centrists of the Liberal Movement (LS)<\/strong> got\u00a012 seats<\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Gabrielius<\/a><\/strong><\/strong>
Gabrielius Landsbergis<\/span><\/figcaption> <\/figure>\n

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In addition, the\u00a0leader of TS-LKD<\/strong>, Gabrielius<\/strong> Landsbergis<\/strong>, decided to resign as head of the party after the election debacle, adding <\/a>that: “The voters’ signal was quite clear, both for the party and for me personally, and it would be a mistake not to hear\u00a0it.” In May 2023, Landsbergis had taken strong positions against the government<\/strong> <\/strong>led by Simonyte, distancing himself from the governing coalition in response to the “municipal spending” scandal. Despite this, his party paid for the people’s discontent<\/strong> <\/strong>heightened by the cost of living and social inequality.<\/p>\n

\n

“<\/strong>The results of these elections have shown that the Lithuanian people<\/strong>, <\/strong>regardless of where they live, in big cities, small towns or villages, want change<\/strong>,”\u00a0 said<\/a> the LDSP<\/strong> leader.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The main campaign themes of the Social Democrats were\u00a0economic<\/strong>, <\/strong>with proposals for higher taxation on the wealthy for social welfare while accommodating people’s concerns about the rising cost of living. Not insignificant were\u00a0the protests planned for this week in the Baltic states against the tax increases<\/a><\/strong>, <\/strong>particularly the VAT, which\u00a0returned to 21 percent after decreasing to support activities in the post-pandemic recovery.\u00a0Blinkeviciute, after a victory she\u00a0defined as\u00a0“historic<\/a>,” <\/strong>will have to pay attention to the demands of her electorate and workers<\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

There should be\u00a0no changes in foreign policy<\/strong>\u00a0regarding firm support for Ukraine, maintaining\u00a0government defense expenditure of about 3 percent of GDP<\/strong>. The proximity with Russia causes concern, so the country is expected to move for increased Euro-Atlantic integration while firmly condemning the Kremlin’s actions and good relations with neighboring countries. Also, regarding Belarus<\/strong>, the new leftist majority will\u00a0not extend a hand to Lukashenko<\/strong> (on whom it has called for the International Criminal Court\u00a0to investigate<\/a>\u00a0for ‘crimes against humanity).\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Equally important for Blinkeviciute will be the positions on social rights<\/strong>. <\/strong>As\u00a0MEP<\/a>, she is part of the\u00a0Committee on Employment and Social Affairs\u00a0and a deputy of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality. She has contributed to the debate on these issues in the EU and in her work at home as a former minister of social security and labor. She will not be able to do less\u00a0in her own country, which was recently urged by\u00a0the Council of Europe Anti-Racism\u00a0Commission<\/a> to do more for\u00a0the rights of LGBTQ+ people and the Roma community.<\/p>\n

The leader of the Social Democrats must form a solid parliamentary majority. The plan is to turn to the progressive parties in the Lithuanian parliament, including the Union of Democrats “For Lithuania”<\/strong> (to which she has already expressed her intentions after the Oct. 13 first ballot) and the Union of Farmers and Greens,<\/strong> which won 14 and 8 seats, respectively. The final decision on the governing coalition will have to wait since it will come only after the Social Democrats’ presidium meeting on Wednesday and then the party council, which should meet the following week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The LDSP party, led by MEP Vilija Blinkeviciute, won 52 seats out of 141 total in the Lithuanian Parliament. Defeat for outgoing leader Ingrida Simonyte, who is paying for the discontent of the population<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7877,"featured_media":400599,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25681],"tags":[28295,27849,27853,29505,28312,25789],"class_list":["post-400765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-belarus-en","tag-election-lithuania-2024-en","tag-lithuania-en","tag-invasion-russian-en","tag-socialdemocrats-en","tag-ukrainian-en-2"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7877"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400765"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":401046,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400765\/revisions\/401046"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}