
Lithuania - March 2023
Ruling coalition loses ground in municipal elections
The Social Democratic Party was the biggest winner of the local elections, greatly increasing its total seats in municipal councils and clinching 17 mayoral seats. More than half of the 60 municipalities went into run-offs on 18 March, where none of the mayoral candidates passed the electoral threshold of 50 per cent. The ruling conservative Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats (TS-LKD) won only 5 mayoral seats, including in Vilnius, as Valdas Benkunskas won the run-off mayoral election. Subsequently, Gabrielius Landsbergis announced his decision not to renew his bid for TS-LKD party leader citing disappointment with the result. Political committees, groupings at the municipal or constituency level that are, in addition to national parties, also eligible to propose candidates in local elections since 2013, came in third place. United Kaunas and Loyal to Klaipėda won the most votes in the Kaunas and Klaipėda city council elections respectively. The voter turnout was 49 per cent in the first round of voting, the highest turnout for local elections since 2002, and slightly higher compared to recent local elections (since a 2015 decision ensuring mayors could be directly elected by residents of the municipality rather than by the municipal councils). 47 per cent of municipal council candidates and one in four mayoral candidates were women (compared to 22 per cent in the 2019 elections for the mayoral candidacy).
Sources: Baltic News Network (1), Baltic News Network (2), LRT, Central Electoral Commission