Lithuania has elected a president, who became – fighting for re-election – Gitanas Nausėda. His victory was not a surprise, but the good result of Eduardas Vaitkus, a doctor who makes no secret of his pro-Kremlin views, came as a shock in this Ukraine-supporting country. We analyze what happened and how it was possible that populist candidates gained a combined total of almost a third of the vote in Lithuania’s presidential election.
Lithuania in three colors
We have three Lithuanians – that’s the meme that started spreading on social networks on election night of the first round of the presidential elections. The meme depicted a map of Lithuania in orange, showing the electoral districts where Gitanas Nausėda, running for a second term, won. Two enclaves stood out against the backdrop of orange Lithuania: blue Vilnius, where incumbent Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė won a majority, and green Višaginas and Šalčininkai regions, where doctor Eduradas Vaitkus, who made no secret of his pro-Kremlin views, was the outright winner. This caused quite a shock in Lithuania.
Eight candidates ran in this year’s presidential election. The election campaign was bland and uninteresting. Everyone realized that there was one leader: it was Gitanas Nausėda, who eventually became head of state again. Other politicians participated only to make a name for themselves in the information field and then to capitalize on this fact in the upcoming elections to the European Parliament – in June; and the parliamentary elections – in October. The only unknowns were the second place and the second round. The biggest surprise, however, was not so much the entry of Ingrida Šimonytė into the second round as the surprisingly good result of independent candidate Eduardas Vaitkus, who advocated friendship with Russia and criticized Lithuanian involvement in helping Ukraine.
Pro-Russian candidate: “If Lithuania provokes Russia…”
During the pre-election debates, Eduardas Vaitkus bluntly said that “Crimea is Russian,” “the West, with the hands of Ukrainians, is waging a proxy war against Russia,” and called NATO an “aggressive military bloc.” He maintained that Vladimir Putin, “being the leader of his country, is doing what he should be doing” and could theoretically be even tougher, and that Lithuania, by becoming a member of the EU and NATO, has lost some of its sovereignty. His statements, which were 100 percent in line with the Kremlin’s propaganda narrative, were eagerly quoted by the Russian government media. “One cannot generalize. You have to evaluate specific circumstances. If Lithuania provokes Russia, then the threat to Lithuania will increase and we will get a concrete answer. Whether Russia is a source of threat or success depends entirely on the direction of Lithuanian policy: will we seek confrontation or cooperation?” – Vaitkus said in an interview. All pre-election polls gave him a maximum of 2 to 3 percent support. In the end, more than 105,000 people voted for Vaitkus, or more than 7 percent of the votes cast in the first round.
Born in 1956, Edurdas Vaitkus has been active in the medical field for most of his life. In 1979 he graduated with honors from the Kaunas Medical Institute. For many years he worked in leading Lithuanian health institutions. He is the author of more than 40 scientific publications. In 2002, he became a professor. At the same time, he was active on the political and social scene. Twice he tried to get into the Seimas. During the pandemic, he criticized the government for its vaccine policy, called on the president to dissolve the Diet, and criticized the public broadcaster for bias. In 2021-2022, together with Algis Paleckis, who was convicted of spying for Russia a year later, he co-founded the “Aurora of Justice” social movement.
Lithuania: commitment vs. reality
Since the full-scale Russian invasion in Ukraine, Lithuania was convinced that the absolute majority of the population was on Kiev’s side. From the very beginning, Lithuania advocated a hard line against Moscow and was an active supporter of aid to Ukraine. None of the political factions ever questioned that the only solution to the problem at hand was Ukraine’s victory on the battlefield. Lithuania and the people there have also been heavily involved in helping Ukraine by accepting refugees and raising funds for humanitarian and military aid. The world media noted with admiration how the small country raised a dizzying amount of money in a matter of days to acquire Turkey’s Bayraktars. The outcome of the first round showed that the reality is more complicated.
In addition to the pro-Russian Eduradas Vaitkus, two more people categorized as anti-system and populist candidates ran: Ignas Vėgėlė and Remigijus Žemaitaitis.
Lawyer and law professor Ignas Vėgėlė made his political capital during the pandemic by criticizing the government’s actions targeting mandatory vaccinations. In criticizing the Cabinet, he was not so much betting on all sorts of conspiracy theories, which were being generated at a dizzying pace at the time, as he was emphasizing human rights issues. He stressed that any attempt by the government to “force” vaccination was contrary to the European spirit of law, which places a premium on the one’s individuality. This approach won him popularity not only among ordinary citizens, but also in artistic and scientific circles. Žemaitaitis, on the other hand, became famous for his anti-Semitic statements, as a consequence of which he had to resign his parliamentary seat. Both candidates did not support Russia’s aggression in any way, but were already critical of Lithuania’s policies toward Belarus and China and the EU’s influence on the country’s politics. In addition, Vėgėlė called for audits on increased defense spending and aid to Ukraine, which could be seen as veiled criticism of the basis of Lithuanian foreign and defense policy.
Vėgėlė won more than 12 percent of the vote, Žemaitaitis won 9. Together with Vaitkus, the populist candidates gained almost a third of the vote. They will certainly try to cash in on this result during the fall parliamentary elections. Vėgėlė will most likely run on the list of the Peasants’ Union and the Greens of agricultural oligarch Ramūnas Karbauskis. Žemaitaitis, on the other hand, has established his own nationalist political group, “Aurora of Nemunas.” So far it is unclear who Vaitkus will join, but his runoff seems a foregone conclusion. Political scientist at the Institute of International Relations and Political Science Mariusz Antonovich does not think the outcome of the autumn elections will significantly affect state politics. “It is certainly a warning sign. The elections showed that the pro-Ukrainian social consensus does not include 80 percent of the population. Nevertheless, two-thirds of the population are on the side of Ukraine. We have another 20 percent slightly skeptical of Lithuania’s foreign policy, but they cannot be counted as part of the anti-Ukrainian “faction.” And we have a little over 7 percent of the Vaitkus electorate, openly speaking out against helping Ukraine and favoring Russia. Against the background of many European countries, this does not look like a failure at all.” – The interviewee stressed in an interview with PostPravda.info.
Lithuania and the outflows of the pro-Kremlin lobby
Military Academy and Vilnius University lecturer Viktor Denisenko, who has been studying the influence of Russian propaganda on the situation in the country for years, also does not see the pro-Russian lobby in the Seimas strengthening its position. “Vėgėlė has tried to lavigate. This strategy didn’t quite work, because most voters have pro-Ukrainian views. I am convinced that if he had spoken in Vaitkus’ words, he would have lost even more moderate voters who are critical of the current government for various reasons. Looking at the situation from the point of view of political pragmatics, these seven percent are very specific. They can be gained, of course, however, by gaining them we lose other electoral segments. So I don’t expect a fierce fight for this group of voters, because the dominant discourse in the country is pro-Ukrainian and pro-Western. The electorate is well aware of who is the aggressor and who is the victim,” the expert explained to PostPravda.info.
Speaking of Vaitkus’ success, it is impossible to ignore his result in local governments inhabited by compact national minorities. Thus, in the Šalčininkai region, where more than 80 percent of residents declare Polish nationality, the politician received almost 40 percent of the vote. On the other hand, in the Vizaginsk local government, where a similar percentage of the population is Russian-speaking, he received almost 38 percent of the votes.
An analysis of the results from individual electoral districts shows that where national minorities made up a significant part of the population, Vaitkus was always one of the leaders. This does not mean, however, that he owes his success solely to minorities: indeed, calculations show that they accounted for a maximum of 40 percent of his electorate. The majority were ethnic Lithuanians.
Tomaševski, Nausėda and Šimonytė
Everything we have said so far does not mean that pro-Kremlin views and general distrust of state institutions are marginal among minority representatives. “We should not get angry and feverish. We should try instead to understand the mood, to grasp what these people, who are citizens of the Republic of Lithuania, live by. We must make every effort to solve their problems.” – Nausėda commented on the issue, while urging the government to pay more attention to these regions.
Šimonytė, in turn, added that the result cannot be taken lightly and should be treated with all seriousness. “We need to re-examine everything and use the appropriate instruments (…) This is not only the task of the government, but also of the president, in a sense also of the Defense Council and of all pro-European forces in the country,” she said. – The prime minister stated. She added that the result may have been influenced by the decision of the leader of the Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania-Union of Christian Families (EAPL-ZChR) Valdemar Tomaševski, who resigned from the presidential race and who has traditionally won in local governments inhabited by national minorities. “It seems that these people were looking for a candidate closest to their worldview,” the politician stressed.
MEP and chairman of the EAPL-ZchR Valdemar Tomaševski, who until recently was perceived in Lithuania as the most pro-Russian politician, declared that Vaitkus’ result was not due to the geopolitical situation but to the attitude of the authorities to the electorate in question. “Our people do not discuss these issues at all. They pray that there will be peace,” the politician stated. Tomaševski stressed that the residents of the Šalčininkai region were displeased with the closure of more border crossings, which makes it significantly more difficult for people to visit the graves of their loved ones. He also recalled the situation in 2021, when the Interior Ministry, without consulting the local community, tried to create a temporary refugee camp in the village of Dziewienishki of the Šalčininkai region.
Lithuania and the border with Belarus
The leader of the EAPL-ZChR agrees with the experts we asked, whose opinion is that the issues of national minorities are unfortunately somewhere on the margins of state policy. “It is said that national minorities need more attention from the state. Unfortunately, no one is able to concretize what this attention would consist of. Nevertheless, in my opinion, the state policy is improving in this regard,” notes Mariusz Antonovich, who believes that for the residents of Solecznik the issue of the border has become a key issue. “Local residents do not agree that the Lithuanian-Belarusian border has become a kind of iron curtain. Pro-Kremlinism is just such a protest, it comes from the need to rebel. I don’t think they are really interested in the belonging of Donbass or Crimea to Russia,” the political scientist noted.
The current government has managed to resolve several issues of importance to national minorities in recent years. Especially for the Polish minority. In 2022, the Seimas amended the Law on the Spelling of Names and Surnames, which partially resolved the issue of the original spelling of Polish names and surnames. It was this issue that for years had cast a shadow over both the Polish minority’s relations with the Lithuanian majority, as well as Vilnius’ relations with Warsaw. Starting this year, Polish will be included in the state matriculation exam. It is likely that a draft of a new Law on National Minorities will be submitted to MPs for debate later in the summer. So it is hard to accuse the authorities of completely ignoring their needs. On the other hand: solving the aforementioned problems does not significantly affect the mood of the Šalčininkai region or other local governments inhabited by minorities.
Denisenko stressed in an interview with PostPravda.info that Vaitkus, despite a good result, did not win anywhere not only a majority but even half of the votes. “What could have influenced such a choice of residents? Certainly, the influence of propaganda cannot be denied here. Vaitkus’ narrative was partly identical to that of Moscow. Unfortunately, for a large part of the residents of these local governments it is acceptable,” the expert stressed.
Lithuania and the fear of war
Antonovich pointed to another aspect of the issue. Vaitkus’ statements were eagerly quoted by Kremlin propaganda channels. Social surveys, even before the war, showed that at least half of Lithuanian Poles and Russians watched Russian television every day. After Feb. 24, Lithuania stopped broadcasting Russian TV, nevertheless, with the help of the Internet or satellite dishes, access to Kremlin media is readily available. “This pro-Kremlinism manifests itself on the principle that it is always better to talk than to fight. Let’s remember that recently even the Western media reported that Ukraine was one step away from an agreement with Russia in the spring of 2022. The Kremlin media reported it to mean that it was the US that forced Zelensky to break off negotiations. Such an interpretation probably seemed plausible to the residents of Solecznik or Wisagini,” Antonovich noted.
Historian and military expert Egidijus Papečkys also emphasizes the war fatigue factor. “In my opinion, these voters cannot be accused of disloyalty. I have talked to many people. The problem is that we and they have a different perception of what Vaitkus said. We hear that he is urging negotiations with Putin. They hear that he wants a quick end to the war. It’s not surprising, everyone is afraid of war and doesn’t want it at home.” – The interviewee noted in an interview with PostPravda.info. “It’s quite possible that some residents have simply grown tired of the war. Constant messages from the front lines. Voting for Vaitkus was a kind of reaction to the situation. On the other hand, it is worth noting the new trends that have emerged in our country over the past two years. Part of the public’s negative view of the current Russia often exemplifies anything Russian. For part of Vaitkus’ electorate, the vote cast for him was a protest against such a stance,” Denisenko added.
Polish-Lithuanian relations, ever since Lithuania regained its independence, have been complicated. One can risk the thesis that in the 20th century we had as many as two unlucky starts of mutual relations. In the first half of the century, relations between the two nations were overshadowed by the so-called “Zeligowski Rebellion” and the dispute over Vilnius. At the turn of the 1980s-90s, relations were further complicated by the project of the so-called Polish National-Territorial Land, which was perceived by Lithuanians as an attempt to detach Vilnius from Lithuania along the lines of Transnistria, Abkhazia, South Ossetia or Nagorno-Karabakh. It should be remembered that the Treaty on Friendship and Good-Neighborly Cooperation between Poland and Lithuania, which, among other things, regulated borders, was signed by Warsaw as the last of its neighbors. Over the course of 30 years, further contentious issues emerged, straining bilateral relations. For example: the aforementioned original spelling of first and last names in official documents; the notorious problems with Polish education in Lithuania; or the lack of a Law on National Minorities.
Abandonment and confrontation
On the one hand we see shortcomings or disregard for national minority issues on the part of the authorities, on the other Valdemar Tomaševski has consistently built his position on the conflict with the Lithuanians. Over a dozen years he managed to transform a marginal ethnic grouping into a representative of all national minorities. In 2014 – already after the occupation of Crimea and Moscow’s unleashing of the conflict in eastern Ukraine – he appeared at a May 9 celebration organized by the Russian embassy with the so-called “Georgiyev ribbon,” which was a symbol of pro-Russian separatists. The gesture sparked criticism at home and abroad. The then Speaker of the Polish Senate Bogdan Borusewicz stated: “This ‘Georgiyevskaya lentochka’ of Tomaševsky did not please me very much. I said this during the debate on Polish issues in the Senate. I understand the game for voters, but it was crossing a line. We won’t support everything: whether what the political party of Poles in Lithuania does is in line with our political line or not. This just wasn’t [in line with it].”
And so we come to another complicated issue that cannot be explained in a zero-one distribution. The EAPL-ZchR has always positioned itself as a conservative and ultra-Catholic grouping, committed to traditional values. The strongly held worldview scared off some Polish voters. Only half of Lithuanian Poles saw their representative in the party. This gave EAPL-ZchR between 3-4 percent of the vote. It therefore needed to gain allies to cross the election threshold of 5 percent. A natural partner was the Russian minority, which, despite attempts, failed to create a full-fledged political representation. As in the case of the Polish minority, half or more of the Russian-speaking electorate voted for national parties. The EAPL-ZChR had a chance of appropriating only the most conservative part of the Russian electorate, which looked nostalgically at the USSR and lived in the Russian information field. To win the sympathy of these voters Valdemar Tomaševsky had to use a pro-Russian narrative from time to time. It is worth noting at this point that Tomaševski, unlike Vaitkus, never questioned EU and NATO membership. The party’s deputies also always voted for increased defense spending. Thus, it can be assumed that the pro-Moscow narrative contributed greatly to the mobilization of the Russian-speaking electorate. This is exactly how it was explained in Warsaw, which provides financial support to the Polish community in Lithuania every year.
The fundamental question is: was it only about the Russian-speaking electorate? According to an opinion poll published in January 2023, practically a year after the full-scale war began, more than 80 percent of Lithuanians stated that Russia posed a threat to Lithuania’s security. Lithuanian Russians expressed a similar opinion about Russia. 83 percent of Russians stated that Russia’s policy toward Lithuania is unfavorable. Only 11 percent of Russians responded that they did not perceive any danger from Russia. The situation is different for the Polish minority. 23 percent of Lithuanian Poles gave a positive assessment of Russia’s policy. That’s twice as many as Lithuanian Russians. Although 56 percent of Poles stressed that Russia poses a threat, it is clear to the naked eye that pro-Russian sentiment for a significant portion of them is the norm.
