Lithuanians voted on Sunday in a first-round ballot to elect one of nine candidates to the presidency.

Polls predicted three candidates — former Finance Minister Ingrida Simonyte, economist Gitanas Nauseda and Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis — have a realistic chance of replacing incumbent President Dalia Grybauskaite, who cannot stand for reelection after completing her two five-year terms.

The center-right Simonyte was popular with educated urban voters, while Skvernelis' populist politics appealed to rural voters. Nauseda, on the other hand, sought to appeal across the rich-poor divide in the former Soviet republic of 2.8 million people.

If no candidate wins an absolute majority following Sunday's poll, the two best-placed candidates will go into a runoff on May 26.

Lithuania simultaneously held two referendums: one on the introduction of dual citizenship to the country and another on the reduction of the number of parliamentary representatives.

Voter turnout tallied at 56.45% at the close of voting, according to the Central Elections Commission. Partial official results are expected to be announced during the night or early on Monday.

'Thirsty for social justice'

Lithuania is struggling with a population decline, partly owing to emigration to Western Europe by people seeking better living conditions. The Eastern European country's economic growth has improved, but poverty, income inequality and unemployment remain high.

"Citizens are thirsty for social justice and seek a candidate who can bridge existing social polarization," Donatas Puslys from the Vilnius Policy Analysis Institute told the AFP news agency.

All main contenders support EU and NATO memberships for Lithuania and are wary of neighboring Russia, particularly since Moscow's 2014 military intervention in Ukraine.

The president has the power to veto laws, set foreign and defense policy, and is involved in appointing judges, the chief prosecutor and the central bank chief. Around 2.5 million people are eligible to vote in the election.

Read more: Lithuania set to ban fake news from Russia

kw,shs/ng (AFP, dpa)

Each evening at 1830 UTC, DW's editors send out a selection of the day's hard news and quality feature journalism. You can sign up to receive it directly here. </s> A man votes during presidental elections in Vilnius, Lithuania, 12 May 2019 | Valda Kalnina/EPA-EFE Close race ahead in Lithuania’s presidential election The two contenders in the run-off are both economists with center-right views.

The two candidates to become Lithuania's next president are locked in a tight race ahead of Sunday's election.

Former Finance Minister Ingrida Šimonytė and economist Gitanas Nausėda are competing to replace President Dalia Grybauskaitė, who cannot run again after two consecutive terms in office. Both are running as independents.

They were neck-and-neck in the first round on March 12, which saw Šimonytė win 31.31 percent of the vote, narrowly beating Nausėda to the top spot by 0.37 percentage points. The Lithuanian electoral commission said that 3,935 votes were all that stood between them — in a country of 2.5 million eligible voters.

But as neither candidate received 50 percent in the first vote, a second round will be held this Sunday, coinciding with the final day of voting in the European Parliament election. No opinion polls are expected to be published ahead of the vote.

Šimonytė, 44, a former MP, was finance minister during the global financial crisis when Lithuania’s GDP dropped by almost 15 percent.

In Lithuania's semi-presidential system, the main duties of the president are foreign and security policy, but domestic issues were the major campaign talking points.

Despite having the backing of the conservative Homeland Union-Christian Democrat party, she has drawn support from young, liberal voters for her progressive social policies, which include support for same-sex civil partnerships and working toward greater representation of women and ethnic minorities in politics and public life.

Homeland Union MP Rasa Juknevičienė, who served as defense minister when Šimonytė was finance minister, praised her as a straight-talking leader and said she would be "more clear and open" than other politicians.

Nausėda, 54, a former chief economist at SEB Bankas and lecturer, has no affiliation with any party. With little experience in politics, his campaign is focused on emphasizing his independence, suggesting he can cooperate with all parties in government.

“Being an independent candidate allows me to represent the whole of society,” he told POLITICO. “And Lithuania needs a president who can act as a unifier.” He added that he wanted to create a sense of “social solidarity."

Both candidates are economists with center-right views who want to unite a society they see as divided. They also emphasize the importance of long-term policy making and constructive political debate.

Margarita Šešelgytė, associate professor at Vilnius University’s department of international relations and political science, said the first round's results had been “quite surprising,” with two very similar candidates making it to the run-off.

“They are representing the same part of the electorate with very small ideological differences,” she said, while noting that Nausėda is considered the more conservative of the two candidates.

She added: “It might be a positive trend when people get tired of populists and choose those who rationalize their statements.”

Speaking after the first round, outgoing President Grybauskaitė said: “The election showed the maturity of Lithuanian society. People have values that cannot be affected by populism or blackmail."

In Lithuania's semi-presidential system, the main duties of the president are foreign and security policy, but domestic issues such as the economy and social welfare were the major campaign issues ahead of the vote.

“Neither [candidate] seems to have a flagship policy for foreign and security policy,” said Egle Murauskaite, a Lithuania-based senior researcher at the University of Maryland’s ICONS project, adding that neither was as well-connected in Brussels as Grybauskaitė had been when she started her first term as president.

Grybauskaitė served as European commissioner for budget before becoming Lithuania's first female president in 2009. </s> VILNIUS, Lithuania — Lithuanians were voting Sunday in the first round of a parliamentary election, with the governing Social Democrats facing challenges from conservatives and an agrarian party.

Lithuania, the biggest of the three Baltic countries, has struggled to stem emigration since regaining independence in the early 1990s and joining the European Union in 2004.

Both the Social Democrats, which have led a coalition government since 2012, and opposition parties have promised to raise living standards in the country of 2.9 million.

Many Lithuanians complain that prices have gone up since the country introduced the euro, the EU's common currency, in 2015, while salaries have not. The country was hit hard by the global economic meltdown and is just emerging from a recession.

Pre-election polls showed the Social Democrats in the lead, ahead of the agrarian Peasant and Green Party and the conservative Homeland Union-Christian Democrats in the race for parliament's 141 seats.

Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius leads the Social Democrats while the conservatives are led by Gabrielius Landsbergis, who at 34 is trying to become Europe's youngest prime minister. He is the grandson of Vytautas Landsbergis, Lithuania's first head of state after the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.

Lithuania remains highly suspicious of Russia and tense relations with Moscow are expected to continue regardless of the outcome of the election.

Polling stations will close at 8 p.m. (1700 GMT). A second round will be held on Oct. 23 in constituencies where no candidate wins a majority of votes.

No party is likely to get more than 20 support so coalition-building talks are sure to follow the election. </s> It's seven years since Lithuania became a trailblazer for European Union austerity amid an unprecedented slump. Despite uninterrupted economic growth since, disquiet over pay and opportunities in the tiny Baltic nation has left Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius' job in the balance.

While narrowly leading polls before elections on Sunday, support for Butkevicius' Social Democrats has shrunk on persistent emigration, sluggish salary growth and a procurement scandal that's worsened already frosty ties with President Dalia Grybauskaite. His coalition allies have also lost ground, while his two closest challengers could forge an alliance to usurp him.

Lithuania, a euro-area and NATO member that borders Russia and Poland, won plaudits for its response to one of the continent's worst recessions after the 2008 crisis. But the recovery hasn't stemmed an exodus of workers or triggered the kind of wage growth seen elsewhere in the region. Campaigning, rocked by graft scandals at parties including the Social Democrats, has focused on pledges of future prosperity, though tight fiscal is set to stay.

"Jobs and wages dominate voters' concerns, but high-profile corruption caseshave significantly rocked the political scene over the past year," said Otilia Dhand, senior vice president at Teneo Intelligence in Brussels. "The outlook for the formation of the next cabinet is unclear."

The Social Democrats will get 15.6 percent of the national vote, the Peasants & Green Union 14 percent and the conservative Homeland Union-Christian Democrats 13.7 percent, an Oct. 4 poll showed. Butkevicius' coalition partners -- the Labor Party and Order & Justice -- are near the 5 percent entry barrier, according to the survey, which had a 3.1 percentage-point margin of error.

Parties can also win seats in single-mandate constituencies, which account for 71 of parliament's 141 seats and where the Social Democrats have traditionally outperformed. A second round of voting in individual constituencies will be held Oct. 23.

Butkevicius, 57, wants more increases in the minimum wage to help lift average monthly salaries to 1,100 euros ($1,230) by 2020 from 772 euros now. He'll also skew taxation from labor to property. Homeland Union, popular among urban voters, pledges to boost average salaries to 1,250 euros. Having secured investment from the likes of Barclays when last in power, it promises 147,000 new jobs, a higher cutoff for untaxed earnings and the return of 80,000 emigrants to the nation of 3 million.

"You don't need to pack your suitcases and leave," Homeland Union head Gabrielius Landsbergis said Thursday evening during a televised debate. "You have to come back because there will be jobs."

The balance of power will probably lie with the Peasants & Greens, who advocate less red tape and a more technocratic government. While they haven't specified a preferred coalition partner, they may be a better fit for Homeland Union, according to Ramunas Vilpisauskas, director of the Institute for International Relations and Political Science at Vilnius University.

Whatever the result, a budget stance that's reigned the deficit back within EU limits is unlikely to change with the big parties shunning major additional expenditure beyond meeting NATO-mandated defense outlays by 2020 in the wake of Russia's Crimea annexation. Economic growth, while curbed by EU sanctions against Russia that Grybauskaite strongly backs, is set to top 3 percent in 2017 and 2018. Government bond yields are near all-time lows.

Fitch Ratings said last month in a report that it's "not expecting a new government to diverge from the current economic, fiscal and social-policy agenda, regardless of the outcome of upcoming parliamentary elections."

---

Ott Ummelas and Milda Seputyte contributed. </s> Lithuanians are voting today in a close presidential runoff between two centre-right rivals.

Former Finance Minister Ingrida Simonyte from the Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats came first in the first round with 31.31 percent of the vote.

Political newcomer and economist Gitanas Nauseda gathered 30.94 percent in second place.

Nauseda had been an advisor to the president of SEB bank in Lithuania. He left his job to run for office as an independent candidate. He was endorsed in the last week by the ruling Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union.

Both candidates have an economic background and say they want to unite the country.

Dalia Grybauskaite, the popular outgoing President of Lithuania who will finish her ten years in office in July, said that the pair deserve to be in this second round run-off.

Something else Simonyte and Nauseda have in common is that they have said they won't go to Moscow to meet President Vladimir Putin unless Russia withdraws from Crimea, which it annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

Meanwhile, candidates from 16 political parties, coalition and public election committees have been competing for Lithuana’s 11 seats in the European Parliament.

Uppermost in voters minds has been anger over economic inequality - which is at one of the highest levels in the European Union - and corruption. </s> Polling stations opened at 7am local time for the European Parliament elections. Voting will continue until 6pm with a one-hour break from 12pm until 1pm. The final results will be given by the Chief Returning Officer at midnight.

A total of 72 candidates from Cyprus are competing for six seats in the European Parliament. Of the 72 candidates, 69 are backed by political parties or coalitions, and three are independent. Candidates also include nine Turkish Cypriots who are citizens of the Republic of Cyprus.

A total of 641,181 people are eligible to vote.

Fifty polling stations have been set up for the 80,862 Turkish Cypriots eligible to vote, who live in then north of the island.

For Cypriots living abroad, a total of 21 polling stations will operate for 6,135 voters. There will be 12 in Greece, seven in England, one in Brussels, and one in Scotland.

Meanwhile, a total of 10,559 EU citizens are registered to vote in Cyprus.

Special arrangements have been made for disabled persons. </s> A total of 21 countries of the European Union hit the ballot boxes to vote for the European Parliament (EP) elections on Sunday.

The voting process is between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. The unofficial results are expected to be made public by tonight.

The citizens of Germany, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Croatia, Spain, Sweden, Italy, Greek Cypriot administration, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia and Greece will vote in the final phase of the elections.

Between May 23 and 25, the people of the UK, the Netherlands, Czechia, Ireland, Slovakia, Malta, and Latvia went to ballot boxes to cast their votes.

The election regulations are organized in line with the domestic laws of the member countries.

About 400 million votes are eligible to cast ballots in the EP elections, making it the second largest democratic election after India. This year’s competition will be between eight different groups within the parliament. The EP is composed of a total of 751 seats. The EP elections are held every five years, 2014 elections drew merely 42% of the voters.

Operating as the legislative body of the union, EP, along with the European Union Council, confirms and approves the union's laws and budget respectively. </s> The European Parliament elections are not unlike cricket. Both can last for quite a few days and it can be pretty hard to understand the rules. This year’s European elections take place between May 23rd and 26th and different countries vote on different days.

It’s not surprising that few people bother to vote in these elections, either because they find the whole process too complicated or because they find it boring (some people feel the same about cricket).

READ ALSO: Falling turnout at European elections: the reasons

But this year’s vote is shaping up to be more interesting than most. The populist surge across Europe is being felt in Brussels, as eurosceptic parties aim to cause trouble from inside. The UK’s failure to secure a Brexit deal has left it in the bizarre position of needing to stand candidates despite its planned departure from the bloc.

Parties across the political spectrum have launched initiatives to encourage 400 million EU citizens to register and vote. The European Parliament (EP) launched the “This time I’m voting” campaign with the same objective, and an app with information about registration and voting in all member states.

Here’s how the vote will work and why these elections are actually very important.

EU citizens will be voting to fill 751 seats in the European Parliament. Although, if the UK pulls out at the last minute in the unlikely event of agreeing a Brexit deal, they will be voting to fill 705 seats.

EU citizens vote for the candidates or parties of their country of origin or residence, provided that they are registered. Those living overseas can use their country’s embassies, consulates or schools to vote for a candidate running in their home country. The minimum age is 18 except in Austria and Malta (where it’s 16) and Greece (where it’s 17). Voting is compulsory in Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece and Luxembourg – although this rule is not always enforced.

READ ALSO: European elections: How UK vote could help predict outcome of a second Brexit referendum

Each member state is allocated a certain number of seats in the European Parliament, according to the size of its population (economic indicators or size of the territory don’t matter in this case). France, for example, currently has 74 seats, Malta and Luxembourg have six MEPs each and the UK has 73.

Voting processes vary significantly from one country to another, but they all include some element of proportional representation. For example, Ireland has three constituencies (Dublin, Midlands-North-West and South) and voters rank the candidates, as many or as few as they wish, in order of choice.

France used to divide its candidates into eight constituencies but these have now been abolished. This year, voters will instead choose from a single electoral list – meaning they vote for a party and not for individual candidates. Bulgaria also has a single constituency, but voters can indicate their candidate preferences within the party list they choose. Estonian citizens and permanent residents can vote online.

How is the parliament organised after the vote?

Once elected, MEPs are organised by transnational groups that reflect their political affiliation. The current parliament has eight groups. These include the centre-left Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) and Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF), which brings together the French National Rally, the Italian League and other far-right parties.



 Marine Le Pen of France's National Rally and Matteo Salvini of Italy's League. Photo: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP

The largest group is the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), which has 216 MEPS. This includes Angela Merkel’s CDU and Viktor Orbán’s FIDESZ (although he has been suspended by the group until further notice). There are also 21 MEPs who do not belong to any group.

The party with the largest number of seats gets to appoint the president of the European Commission, a position currently held by former Jean-Claude Juncker, the former prime minister of Luxembourg. The president is akin to a conductor: he or she sets the tempo and makes sure the orchestra plays in a harmonious way but they cannot choose the repertoire alone. In the European Parliament, no party family has the majority of the seats so they have to reach out to other groups, working together to to approve legislation.

READ ALSO: Juncker vows to fight 'fake news' before European elections

Why is there a European parliament?

The idea that there should be a parliamentary assembly to represent the citizens of the member states dates back to 1952, when the Coal and Steel Community (the precursor of the European Community) was established. At that time, the 142 members were national parliamentarians appointed by their respective governments. They played only a marginal role, while the “real” decisions were made by the member states.

The first direct elections to the parliament took place in 1979 and the body has, over time, developed political muscle. Together with the European Council (which represents the member states), the parliament is now responsible for preparing and adopting the EU budget – which amounts to €165.8 billion in 2019.

The parliament legislates on all kinds of important issues, from food standards to LGBT rights. In March, for example, 560 of the 751 MEPs voted in a new law banning single-use plastic items such as plates and cutlery by 2021.

Why is there such a low turnout?

Despite the important role the parliament plays, voter turnout has dropped from 62 percent in 1979 to 43 percent in 2014. In some countries, participation is incredibly low. Only 13 percent of Slovakian voters went to the polls in the last elections.

In some of the newer member states, the perception that voting doesn’t make any difference, together with mistrust in politicians and in politics in general, keeps people from participating.

Europe’s media also doesn’t cover the parliament’s work much, so people don’t pay attention to it. It rarely goes viral, and when it does, it’s usually for the wrong reasons.

This all combines to give the impression that the parliament is not an organisation to be taken seriously. But the European Parliament is, in many ways, the human face of the European Union. It is made up of people from different countries, who all bring different stories and experiences – people like the Polish MEP Marek Plura, an advocate for policies that promote a more inclusive society for people with disabilities (he suffers himself from a degenerative illness).

Nevertheless, there is still room for improvement when it comes to gender balance and ethnic diversity in the parliament. Women make up just 37 percent of the 751 MEPs, and less than 20 MEPs identify themselves as non-white (there are no official statistics on this because several states are against collecting data on ethnicity).

Despite the low levels of participation in European elections, it’s worth noting that 50 percent of Europeans say they trust the institution, while only 34 percent feel the same about national governing bodies.

On average, 68 percent of European citizens believe their country has benefited from EU membership. People like the idea of easily travelling to another country and are attached to the Euro (France’s Marine Le Pen and Italy’s Matteo Salvini changed their discourse about the single currency after they were confronted with that evidence). And in Romania, Spain and Poland, EU membership is often regarded as a sort of antidote to the excesses of national governments.

READ ALSO: Five reasons why the European elections really do matter

The European parliament is also often to be found leading the charge on issues that are truly important to European citizens such as environmental protection, transparency and data protection.

Recent protests in France and in other countries have shown that EU institutions have not properly addressed some of their citizens’ most crucial concerns. Many of these concerns have less to do with national issues such as immigration and political parties and more to do with a broader hope for a brighter, fairer and happier future. As a transnational body, the European Parliament has a unique role to play in addressing these big issues, and communicating them to the public.

Tatiana Coutto, Teaching Fellow, Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. </s> • Europeans from 21 countries have started voting on the fourth and final day of the EU parliamentary elections.
• The results should be clear late on Sunday, with exit polls in Germany expected at 1600 UTC.
• The Netherlands, the UK, Ireland, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Malta and Slovakia have already voted.

07:45 The election will hopefully strengthen anti-immigration political forces across Europe, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said after casting his vote in Budapest. "I hope that there will be a shift in the European public arena in favour of those political parties who would like to stop migration."

07:15 Support for the Green Party surged in Ireland — where the vote was held on Friday — putting the Greens on course to win as many as three European seats, according to an exit poll for broadcasters RTE/TG4. European Greens co-lead candidate Bas Eickhout spoke of a "green wave" rolling on to Irish shores from the Netherlands, where an exit poll put GroenLinks' (GreenLeft's) share of the vote up to 10.5%.

06:40 The European Parliament forms the democratic basis of the European Union. It plays a key role in electing the president of the European Commission and ensures EU institutions are working democratically. The Parliament shares power over the bloc's budget and legislation with the Council of the European Union, which represents the governments of member states. Elections to the Parliament take place every five years and voter turnout has been steadily declining. In 2014 it was the lowest ever — just 42.5%.

06:25 Around 400 million people are eligible to vote for 751 MEPs who will serve for the next five years and help shape Europe’s future. There's a lot at stake. The issues of Brexit, immigration and the rise of right-wing parties across the bloc could bring some surprises and make these polls the most important since the first direct elections 40 years ago.

06:00 Polling stations in 21 EU countries, including major EU states of Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Poland, have opened.

Read more: EU election: Europeans head to the polls across the continent

Voting is also taking place in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia and Sweden.

The Netherlands and the UK headed to the EU polls on Thursday — the first day of election — followed by Ireland and the Czech Republic on Friday and Latvia, Malta and Slovakia on Saturday.

A total of 420 million EU citizens are eligible to cast their ballot in these elections.

According to exit polls, the Netherlands' center-left party of EU Vice President Frans Timmermans won the most votes and added two seats to the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) bloc in the EU Parliament.

In Britain, hundreds of non-British EU citizens were turned away from polling stations on Thursday after being told they were not registered to vote in the UK for the election. The British government is now facing a potential legal challenge over the denial of votes to EU citizens.

As Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Poland send almost half of all MEPs to the European Parliament – 348 out of a total 751 – the Sunday vote is dubbed the most crucial of all rounds. Opinion polls suggest that far-right groups and Euroskeptics could gain more strength in the European Parliament, with populist parties such as Marine Le Pen's National Rally in France and Matteo Salvini's Northern League in Italy are expected to perform well in the polls.

Read more: Opinion: The EU's future and the European Parliament vote
Voters in Lithuania vote to elect representatives for the 141-seat parliament.