Lithuania: Political Developments and Data in 2019

Political Developments and Data in 2022: Introducing the 2023 Political Data Yearbook

“…Poland and the Baltic countries played a very active role in pushing the EU to adopt punitive measures against Russia and provide support for Ukraine in all possible ways. Lithuania even went so far as to initiate a process of ‘de‐russification’ of public life (Jastramskis & Ramonaitė 2023). Farther south, Romania also showed unwavering support for Ukraine, facilitating exports of wheat and imports of medicine and military equipment (Stan & Zaharia 2023).…”

Lithuania: Political Developments and Data in 2020

“…After the Cabinet reshuffle in 2019 (Jastramskis and Ramonaitė 2020), the Skvernelis government continued as a minority coalition of three parties (LVŽS, LSDDP and LLRA) until the parliamentary elections in October, becoming the third Lithuanian government since 1990 to stay the full four‐year term. No major changes were made to the composition of the government during the year (Table 2), except the appointment of a new Minister of Economy and Innovation.…”

“…The Prime Minister has a constitutional 15‐day limit to present her government and its programme to Parliament after her confirmation. In contrast to the 2019 coalition reshuffle, when he approved new ministers almost without question (Jastramskis and Ramonaitė 2020), this time the President acted in a scrupulous manner and organized two rounds of meetings: first with the President's advisers, and second with the President himself. Nausėda received criticism for this prolonged process as the second wave of the Covid‐19 pandemic was soaring at the time in Lithuania.…”

“…On 14 January, Parliament failed to overcome the presidential veto on reducing the electoral threshold in the proportional tier (70 seats out of 141) of parliamentary elections from 5 per cent to 3 per cent. The proposal to lower the electoral threshold was backed by Parliament on 10 December 2019 on the initiative of the ruling coalition and was vetoed on 19 December 2019 by President Gitanas Nausėda (Jastramskis and Ramonaitė 2020).…”

“…The LSDP expected to recover after the defeat in 2016 and a subsequent split, as the party came second in the European Parliament elections in May 2019 (Jastramskis and Ramonait ė 2020). The attempts at ideological renewal under the leadership of Gintautas Paluckas, however, appeared detrimental to the party, as it came only fourth with 9.25 per cent of votes and eight seats in the multi-member district.…”