Photo: Ingrida Simonyte. Gitanas Nauseda
Gitanas Nauseda announced his re-election following the results of the second round of the presidential elections in Lithuania. The election campaign focused on security concerns.
Ballots received from nearly 90% of polling stations showed Nausėda winning about three-quarters of the vote. He is followed by Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte.
If the vote is confirmed, support for Nausėda in his bid for a second term will be the highest in the country since it declared independence in 1991, Reuters reports.
Nausėda, 60, a former senior economist at Swedish banking group SEB who does not belong to any party, won the first round of elections on May 12 with 44% of the vote. To win, you need to score 50%.
In the second round, Nausėda faced the Prime Minister of Lithuania, Ingrida Simonytė. She is 49 years old. Simonyte belongs to the ruling center-right Motherland Union party. She was the only woman out of eight candidates competing in the first round and came in second place, receiving 20%.
According to an ELTA/Baltijos Tyrimai poll conducted in February-March, just over half of Lithuanians consider a Russian attack possible or even very likely.
"Our enemies – who even call themselves our enemies, who are our enemies and the enemies of the entire democratic world – are trying to destabilize our politics, and we must do everything to resist this",– Nauseda said during the election debate.
Both Nausėda and Šimonytė advocate increasing defense spending to at least 3% of Lithuania's gross domestic product from 2.75% planned for this year.
Šimonytė, formerly – Finance Minister, said on Thursday that if she wins, "the direction of the country– pro-European, pro-Western – will not change.”
"But I would like faster progress, more openness and understanding, more tolerance for people who are different from us.” – she explained.
Nausėda and Šimonytė faced each other for the second time in the second round of the presidential election. In 2019, Nauseda defeated Simonyte with 66% of the vote.
BAGNET recalls that the population of Lithuania is about 2.8 million people. Lithuania is a consistent ally of Ukraine. Following the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, Lithuania, like other countries in the region, fears that it may become the target of aggression from Moscow.
Prepared by: Sergei Daga