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1st LD: Lithuania elects municipal councils, mayors

Xinhua, March 1, 2015 Adjust font size:

More than 5 percent of Lithuanians eligible to vote have casted their ballots in the first three hours of elections on city and town municipal councils and first direct mayoral elections held in the country on Sunday.

According to the Central Electoral Commission, voting activity reached 5.27 percent three hours after elections kicked off.

"Turnover is 5.27 percent and it slightly exceeds that we saw during the previous elections in 2011," said Zenonas Vaigauskas, the head of the Central Electoral Commission, in a press conference.

During the early voting earlier this week, 4.98 percent of voters expressed their will, shows the data from the Commission. 3.84 percent voted in the early voting in the previous municipal elections in 2011.

"I expect more citizens' activity and more accountability from the mayors," said Algirdas Butkevicius, the Prime Minister of Lithuania, to journalists after giving his vote.

He revealed directly elected mayors might get more powers after the elections if newly elected councils would form coalitions opposing the mayors.

"If it happens, then we should think about strengthening mayors' powers," said Butkevicius.

President Dalia Grybauskaite took a chance to vote early due to her working trip to Chile.

Direct mayoral elections are being held in Lithuania for the first time. The Seimas, the Lithuanian Parliament, backed the idea of direct elections last year seeking to increase responsibility of mayors and improve voting activity in municipal elections. Previously mayors were elected by municipal councils.

The second round of mayoral elections will be held after two weeks in those municipalities where winners were unable to receive support from more than half of voters.

Arturas Zuokas, the current mayor of Vilnius, Lithuanian capital, forecasts the second round is inevitable in Vilnius.

"According to the structure of Vilnius city population, of course, the second round is unavoidable," Zuokas was quoted as saying by news website delfi.lt after his vote.

According to Statistics Department of Lithuania, Polish people account to 23 percent of inhabitants in Vilnius region. Their candidate is expected to move into a second round receiving substantial amount of support and not allowing any of leading candidates to get more than 50 percent of votes.

Around 15,000 candidates to city and town municipal councils and 400 candidates to the mayors are waiting to hear the will of 2.54 million Lithuanians eligible to vote. A total of 1,524 members of municipal councils including 60 mayors will be elected during the ballot.

In conjunction with municipal and direct mayoral elections, the elections of member of the Seimas are being held in Zirmunai, the district of capital Vilnius. 12 candidates are seeking a parliamentary seat after Vytenis Andriukaitis, the social democrat MP and the former Health Minister, went to the European Commission to serve as the Commissioner for Heath and Food Safety. Endit