European Election

A letter from Vilnius

The political season in Lithuania has been especially intense this spring, as we had municipal elections followed by presidential elections, two referendums and the European elections in the course of the past three months. Naturally, the presidential elections took the limelight away from the European campaign. Just like in many other countries, European elections are considered to be the least exciting ones here in Lithuania, partly because people take little interest in how things work in Brussels and also because many parties delegate their most experienced politicians, who are past their zenith, to the European Parliament.

However, in the Liberal Movement (LRLS) we decided to take another course, since we are one of the most pro-European parties in Lithuania and we take pride in being experts on European matters. Therefore, we put forward some of our strongest politicians to run for the European Parliament and thus to participate actively in the election campaign. We also made a decision to run a professional and costly TV add campaign, making sure that we would get through to voters, despite the fact that the presidential elections were receiving much more publicity.

This year‘s European elections were unique as 16 parties and political groups competed for only eleven seats. The newest trend of Lithuanian politics is that along traditional parties there are movements forming, who present themselvels as a fresh and less “political” alternative to voters who are tired and disappointed of party politics. This trend was especially obvious this time, but in the end, the traditional, pro-European parties did exceptionally well.

The Liberal Movement ran a quality campaign, with a strong pro-European message and a detailed programme. We have communicated clearly that we stand for an undivided strong European Union rooted in the basic freedoms and values that we all share. This message seeemed to resonate well with our voters in both the big cities and smaller rural areas.

The final result was decent. We received 6,55% and a mandate for our front runner and serving member of the European Parliament, Petras Austrevicius. While we have some time to analyse the results and draw some conclusions, the next national elections are coming up in 2020. It is going to be a very busy and intense time for the party, but we are optimistic and we hope that after the 2020 elections the liberal voice in Lithuanian Parliament will be as strong as ever.

Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen,  leader of the Liberal Movement parliamentary group.

Litauen

Wahlbeteiligung Europawahl 2019: 3%
Sitze im Europäischen Parlament: 11 Sitze
Liberale Partei:

• Lietuvos Respublikos liberalų sąjūdis (LRLS)
  (6,6%): 1 Sitz (↓ 1)