Nauseda, Simonyte to face off in Lithuania's presidential runoff
Lithuanian incumbent President Gitanas Nauseda is the winner of Sunday's presidential election, with 46.08% of the vote with over 69% of the vote counted, but fell short of an outright majority that would have averted a runoff.
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Mundo Lituânia
Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte, who came in second with 16.48% of the vote and lost to the independent candidate in 2019, will face him again in the runoff on May 26. Shortly after midnight today, Gitanas Nauseda said he was "ready to make a strong push for victory in the second round" and believed "he could do it", although he admitted he would have liked to have won in the first round, according to the EFE news agency. Ingrida Simonyte said her "main goal" at this stage was to reach a second round and said she was happy to have achieved it, in statements to Lithuanian public television LRT, quoted by the EFE news agency. Turnout in Sunday's election was 59.4% of the 2,329,144 citizens registered on the electoral rolls, the highest since 1997, compared to 57.37% in the first round in 2019, according to the Central Electoral Commission, which will announce the final count today. Polling stations opened on Tuesday for early voting in the presidential election, with voters also casting their ballots in a referendum on citizenship status. The President of Lithuania, who has mainly ceremonial powers, is the supreme commander of the Armed Forces, oversees foreign and security policy with the government and participates in European Union and NATO summits. Lithuania, a former Soviet republic now aligned with the major Western powers, remains one of Ukraine's main donors and stands out for its significant investments in defence, with a current budget of 2.75% of GDP. The government led by Simonyte is expected to present proposals in the coming weeks to increase defence spending to 3% of GDP. Lithuania intends to use these funds to purchase tanks and new anti-aircraft defence systems, and expects to permanently host a 5,000-strong German brigade on its territory by 2027. The difficult relations between Nauseda and the ruling conservatives of his rival Simonyte have prompted debates on foreign policy, particularly relations with China. Bilateral relations worsened in 2021, when Vilnius allowed Taiwan to open an embassy under the island's name, breaking with the usual diplomatic practice of using the capital's name, Taipei, to avoid antagonising Beijing. China, which considers Taiwan part of its territory and opposes any support for the island that could give it international legitimacy, downgraded its diplomatic relations with Vilnius and blocked its exports. This decision sparked a major controversy among Lithuanian politicians, with some calling for relations to be restored in the name of the country's economy. Among the 2,000 observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) expected to monitor the vote are 20 international observers from Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Ukraine, Moldova, as well as representatives from the United States Electoral Assistance Fund and the Ukraine office of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES). Read Also: Presidential elections in Lithuania dominated by defence, Russia and China (Portuguese version)
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