Lithuania, an Eastern European country which gained independence in 1990 from the USSR, is undergoing presidential elections. Gitanas Nasueda (current president) will be battling it out with opposition Ingrida Šimonytė (current Prime Minister), as in the first round he achieved 46%, just shy of the 50% to secure the term. The second round will take place on 26th May.
To understand why these elections are so important, let’s delve deeper into the political candidates fighting for this election and the conflict in Ukraine which seems to be driving political sentiment across Eastern Europe.
Current situation
As mentioned above, Gitanas Nasueda is the current president, (the sixth since 1990) and is an independent candidate. Over the past 5 years, he has grown the economy, as well as making key trade agreements with China, UK, and the EU. As well as this, he urges his own government as well as the EU to support and arm Ukraine, despite having a border with Russia (Kaliningrad Oblast) and being one of its key trading partners. Overall, he has helped tackle macroeconomic objectives such as inflation and economic growth and trading with different countries to strengthen domestic markets.
The opposition, just like in 2019, is Ingrida Šimonytė, who is the current prime minister and is a member of the Homeland Union (Conservatives) party. She also calls for support in Ukraine as well as reforming key parts of the government by taking lessons learnt during Covid. She seems like a strong candidate, but will she become the 2nd female President of Lithuania or will Nasueda hold a 2nd term.
Looking from a different perspective, the public. Many Lithuanians have faced many challenges, from high inflation peaking around 20% in 2022, to geopolitical tensions with more than 12,000 Ukrainian refugees entering their borders. There are also some anti- LGBT tensions faced by certain communities. There were also some concerns raised when Ingrida Šimonytė expressed her campaign slogan a couple of months ago, (Strong President, Strong Country) which some critics have said resembles Putin’s slogan, ‘Strong President, Strong Russia’. However, her response was that, ‘it is not slogans that win elections, but candidates.’
Speaking about Russia, lets discuss Lithuania’s stance on the war, and how it can be good and bad for Lithuania.
In the middle of it?
Nasueda has been clear to the West and his own country that they should support Ukraine, not necessarily through political means, but by adding fuel to the fire, which consequently may get them burned. He also mentioned that Ukraine’s fight is our fight, as shown by the increase in GDP towards defence and bilateral aid to Ukraine. Despite billions of aid packages sent to Ukraine from the US, it still relies on smaller packages from smaller nations, due to continued pressure from Russia, which may signal that the situation is deteriorating for Ukraine.
There are fears that Putin may not stop at Ukraine, smaller former USSR nations may be next on his list if he is able to successfully sweep Ukraine.
A Budget-friendly Approach?
While on the topic about war, Lithuania (who is a part of NATO) has seen a defence spending increase to 2.8% GDP in 2023, previous to 2.52% in 2022, and 2% in 2021. Lithuania has also promised a minimum of 3% of GDP towards defence by 2025. It will also use additional money to hold 5000 German troops by 2027. Lithuania had a GDP of around $71 billion in 2022, so considering around 2 billion of that is towards defence, it may not seem a lot, however if the cauldron boils more furiously, then we may see a spike in defence spending, as actions by Nauseda have seen to have disturbed the Kremlin
Final thoughts
Elsewhere in Eastern Europe, political sentiment seems to be becoming increasingly anti-Russian?
In Slovakia Pro-Putin Prime minister faced an assassination attempt, whether this was simply a low-level attack or something more sinister is unclear, yet what has become apparent is that smaller nations must “choose their sides” as Russia’s ground offensive shows no sign of stopping.
Elsewhere in Georgia, widespread protests took place against an alleged “Russian bill” which involved organisations having 20% + external funding to list as “foreign agents”, Georgians believe this might lower their chances of being able to join the EU (currently are a candidate country) thus making them more vulnerable if Putin’s plans become more ambitious.
Just as political stances on Israel-Gaza have been challenged across the world, Eastern European nations are beginning to come out of their shells and are becoming increasingly more vocal about this seemingly unending conflict which threatens to embroil them all. Think of these former USSR nations as “converted” proxies, those that have seen the “light” of Western Democracy and will continue to as long as they keep up the good fight and continue to finance a bottomless Ukrainian Resistance (the money is being squandered!).