“We, the Social Democrats, have achieved a historic victory, something that we have probably not experienced for decades. We won both in single-mandate constituencies, where we won as many as 34 seats, and in multi-mandate constituencies, where we won 18 seats. Our party program for the elections clearly declares that we are not planning any new reforms,” she said at a post-election press conference on Monday. In the current Seimas, the Social Democrats have only 14 mandates.
V. Blinkevičiute, who has been a member of the European Parliament since 2009, confirmed that the LSDP will continue negotiations on forming a government coalition with the Democratic Union on behalf of Lithuania and the Union of Greens and Farmers, which won 14 and eight mandates respectively in the elections. For now, they are simply consultations and exchanges of opinions. Negotiation groups are being formed that will try to reach an agreement on party programs and joint action. The final decision on the government coalition will be made by the presidium of the LSDP on Wednesday and the party council next week. Such a coalition would have a majority of 74 seats out of 141 in the Seimas.
On the other hand, the currently ruling conservative party in Lithuania, the Fatherland Union – Christian Democrats of Lithuania, which won 50 mandates in the last Seimas elections, won only 28 this time. The leader of the conservatives, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis announced yesterday at the post-election press conference that he has decided to resign from the position of party chairman, as well as not to accept the mandate of the deputy in the next parliamentary session.
“The signal given by the voters is perfectly clear both for the party and for me personally. It would be wrong not to hear it. Today I make the decision to resign from the position of party chairman. Of course, I cannot ignore the fact that the party is becoming an extremely negative discourse related to me or my family or a hostage to the narrative. I think that the party should freely seek opportunities for transformation, find its way forward in a way that is not burdened by issues that are related to me and that constantly become part of the political campaign or political agenda,” said D. Landsbergis.