VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Lithuanians return to the polls Sunday for the second round of the Baltic country's presidential election as incumbent President Gitanas Nausėda seeks to hold off Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė and secure another five-year term.
The 60-year-old Nauseda, a moderate conservative, has been a strong backer of Ukraine, a position shared across most of the political spectrum. The popular Nauseda has been in office since 2009 and during that time Lithuania has also given refuge to many who have fled an and increased .
The president’s main tasks in NATO-member Lithuania’s political system are overseeing foreign and defense policy, along with acting as the supreme commander of the armed forces.
Given that Lithuania is strategically located on , the presidency of a relatively small nation is given added importance as tensions rise between Russia and the West over the war in Ukraine.
The election comes as Russian gains in Ukraine are fueling particularly in the
After regaining its independence in 1991 from the Soviet Union, which occupied the southernmost Baltic country for five decades, Lithuania joined the European Union and NATO in 2004.
Both candidates have been outspoken critics of Moscow and of Minsk, a Russia ally.
NausÄ—da who is favored to win another five-year term, is a former banker who entered politics with his successful presidential run in 2019. He and Å imonytÄ— won the first round but failed to muster the 50% of the votes needed to win the presidency outright. NausÄ—da won on May 12 with 44% of the votes and Å imonytÄ— nearly 20%.
Both NausÄ—da and Å imonytÄ—, who became prime minister in 2020, also ran against each other in a presidential runoff in 2019, when NausÄ—da won with 66% of the votes.
Lithuania’s Central Electoral Commission is expected to announce the outcome of the election on Monday.
