Municipal elections in Lithuania were held on 5 March 2023 [1] and saw 1,498 members of the municipal councils and 60 mayors elected to office for a four-year term.
Size of cabinet in each municipality varies depending on populations. Lowest population municipalities with up to 5,000 inhabitants have 15 seats, while largest municipalities with over 500,000 inhabitants have 51 seats. [2]
During mayoral elections, a single candidate must receive over 50% in first round, otherwise the top two candidates will participate in second round. If turnout is less than 40% in specific municipality, the candidate must receive at least 20% of all registered votes to win the title.
New Lithuanian Elections Codecs came into power on 1 September 2022. With new regulations all elected mayors will no longer have a seat in the municipality cabinet and the number of mayoral terms is now capped at a maximum of three. [3]
Candidate | Party | First round | Second round | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Votes | % | Votes | % | |||
Valdas Benkunskas | Homeland Union | 68,788 | 31.13 | 116,464 | 52.73 | |
Artūras Zuokas | Freedom and Justice | 47,805 | 21.64 | 104,412 | 47.27 | |
Mykolas Majauskas | Independent | 23,789 | 10.77 | |||
Tomas Vytautas Raskevičius | Freedom Party | 22,146 | 10.02 | |||
Waldemar Tomaszewski | Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania | 19,018 | 8.61 | |||
Vytautas Sinica | National Alliance | 8,347 | 3.78 | |||
Rasa Budbergytė | Social Democratic Party of Lithuania | 5,606 | 2.54 | |||
Lukas Savickas | Union of Democrats "For Lithuania" | 4,515 | 2.04 | |||
Eglė Radvilė | Liberals' Movement | 4,106 | 1.86 | |||
Valdas Tutkus | Lithuanian Regions Party | 4,048 | 1.83 | |||
Ieva Kačinskaitė-Urbonienė | Labour Party | 3,183 | 1.44 | |||
Stasys Jakeliūnas | Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union | 2,965 | 1.34 | |||
Petras Gražulis | Lithuanian Centre Party | 2,352 | 1.06 | |||
Aidas Gedvilas | Independent | 2,190 | 0.99 | |||
Remigijus Lapinskas | Lithuanian Green Party | 1,661 | 0.75 | |||
Ramojus Girinskas | Young Lithuania | 436 | 0.20 | |||
Total | 220,955 | 100.00 | 220,876 | 100.00 |
Political party | Municipality elections | Mayoral elections | Note | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Votes | % [6] | Seats | Seats | |||
Social Democratic Party of Lithuania | 204,029 | 17.45 | 358 | 17 | ||
Homeland Union | 189,396 | 16.20 | 239 | 5 | ||
Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union | 107,568 | 9.20 | 185 | 8 | ||
Public election committees | 161,861 | 13.84 | 183 | 11 | ||
Liberals' Movement | 81,262 | 6.95 | 135 | 9 | ||
Union of Democrats "For Lithuania" | 78,052 | 6.68 | 124 | 5 | New | |
Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania – Christian Families Alliance | 62,359 | 5.33 | 57 | 1 | ||
Lithuanian Regions Party | 28,927 | 2.47 | 56 | 1 | ||
Freedom and Justice | 60,794 | 5.20 | 55 | 2 | ||
Labour Party | 42,927 | 3.67 | 46 | 0 | ||
Freedom Party | 41,522 | 3.55 | 13 | 0 | New | |
Lithuanian Green Party | 19,386 | 1.66 | 12 | 0 | ||
Christian Union | 6,124 | 0.52 | 8 | 0 | ||
People and Justice Union | 10,704 | 0.92 | 7 | 0 | ||
Central Right Coalition | Homeland Union | 7,566 | 0.65 | 6 | 0 | |
Liberals' Movement | ||||||
Freedom Party | ||||||
Visaginians coalition | Homeland Union | 1,487 | 0.13 | 5 | – | New |
Liberals' Movement | ||||||
National Alliance | 13,140 | 1.12 | 3 | 0 | New | |
Coalition „Best Choice“ | Freedom and Justice | 2,060 | 0.18 | 3 | – | New |
Freedom Party | ||||||
Liberals' Movement | ||||||
Coalition „For Freedom to Grow“ | Liberals' Movement | 1,209 | 0.10 | 3 | – | |
Lithuanian Green Party | ||||||
Coalition „Strong Family - Strong Kaunas“ | Christian Union | 3,049 | 0.26 | 0 | – | New |
People and Justice Union | ||||||
Young Lithuania | 1,495 | 0.13 | 0 | 0 | ||
Samogitian Party | 741 | 0.06 | 0 | 0 | ||
Independent candidates | – | – | – | 1 | ||
Void votes | 43,516 | 3.72 | – | I - 29,656 | 2.54% | |
II - 8,763 | 1.34% | |||||
Total | 1,169,174 | 100 | 1,498 | |||
Registered voters/turnout | 2,389,342 | 48.93 | ||||
Source: VRK [7] |
![]() | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Party | Votes | % | Seats | |
Homeland Union | 65,718 | 30.45 | 19 | |
Freedom and Justice | 31,537 | 14.61 | 9 | |
Freedom Party | 29,330 | 13.59 | 9 | |
Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania | 23,892 | 11.07 | 7 | |
Social Democratic Party of Lithuania | 13,811 | 6.40 | 4 | |
National Alliance | 10,416 | 4.83 | 3 | |
Liberals' Movement | 8,365 | 3.88 | 0 | |
Union of Democrats "For Lithuania" | 8,361 | 3.87 | 0 | |
Labour Party | 6,098 | 2.83 | 0 | |
Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union | 5,020 | 2.33 | 0 | |
Lithuanian Regions Party | 4,237 | 1.96 | 0 | |
Lithuanian Green Party | 3,910 | 1.81 | 0 | |
Lithuanian Centre Party | 2,470 | 1.14 | 0 | |
Young Lithuania | 1,495 | 0.69 | 0 | |
Christian Union | 1,191 | 0.55 | 0 | |
Total | 215,851 | 100.00 | 51 |
Elections in Lithuania are held to select members of the parliament, the president, members of the municipal councils and mayors, as well as delegates to the European Parliament. Lithuanian citizens can also vote in mandatory or consultative referendums.
Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania – Christian Families Alliance or EAPL–CFA is a political party in Lithuania. It positions itself as Christian-democratic. It has 3 seats in the Seimas, 1 seat in the European Parliament and 57 seats in municipal councils after the 2023 local election.
Presidential elections were held in Lithuania on 22 December 2002 and 5 January 2003. Incumbent President Valdas Adamkus ran for reelection alongside sixteen other candidates, the largest field of presidential candidates in the country's history. Though Adamkus held a large lead over his closest opponent, Rolandas Paksas of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), in the first round of the election, Paksas defeated Adamkus in the second round with 54.71% of the vote.
Liberals' Movement, abbr. LS, is a conservative-liberal political party in Lithuania.
The People and Justice Union is a right-wing populist political party in Lithuania. It is currently not represented in the Seimas. The chairman of the party is Petras Gražulis. Petras Gražulis was impeached from Lithuanian parliament and is not allowed, as of 2024, to participate in any national elections.
The Samogitian Party is a minor ethnic-regionalist autonomist party of Lithuania's Samogitian minority founded in February 2009.
Presidential elections were held in Lithuania on 11 May 2014, with a second round held on 25 May between the top two candidates from the first round. In the second round, incumbent President Dalia Grybauskaitė was re-elected with 58% of the vote. Second round took place alongside the 2014 European elections.
The Lithuanian People's Party is a minor political party in Lithuania which describes itself as left-of-centre. It was founded in 2010 as a split from the Lithuanian Peasant Popular Union, and was led by the party's former chairman and the first prime minister of independent Lithuania, Kazimira Prunskienė. It has no representatives on the European, national or municipal level.
Young Lithuania is a nationalist political party in Lithuania. The party has no seats in the Seimas, European Parliament or local municipalities. The leader of the party is Stanislovas Buškevičius.
Jewish People's Election Group "Achdus" was an electoral grouping in inter-war Lithuania. It was affiliated to Agudath Israel.
Parliamentary elections were held in Lithuania on 9 and 23 October 2016 to elect the 141 members of the Seimas. 71 were elected in single-member constituencies using the two-round system, and the remaining 70 in a single nationwide constituency using proportional representation. The first round was held on 9 October and the second round on 23 October.
Naglis Puteikis is a Lithuanian politician and member of the Seimas.
Parliamentary elections were held in Lithuania on 11 and 25 October 2020 to elect the 141 members of the Seimas. 71 were elected in single-member constituencies using the two-round system, and the remaining 70 in a single nationwide constituency using proportional representation. The first round was held on 11 October and the second round on 25 October.
Živilė Pinskuvienė is a Lithuanian engineer, politician and Mayor of Širvintos District Municipality since 2015. She was the chairwoman of the Labour Party from 2016 to 2017.
Parliamentary elections are scheduled to be held in Lithuania by 13 October 2024, with a second round on 27 October 2024.
The Union of Democrats "For Lithuania" is a centre-left and green Lithuanian political party founded on 29 January 2022 by Saulius Skvernelis, former Prime Minister of Lithuania. The party is moderately socially conservative.
Robert Duchniewicz is a Lithuanian Polish politician. As of 2023, he is the vice-chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania and mayor of Vilnius District Municipality, which includes the rural districts around Vilnius and the Vilnius urban area's outskirts.
Lithuania – For Everyone, known as the Emigrant Party before 2020, is a minor political party in Lithuania which represents the interests of the Lithuanian diaspora.
The 2021 Social Democratic Party of Lithuania leadership election took place on 3–9 May 2021 to elect the chairperson of the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania. It was the third direct leadership election in the party's history.
In Lithuania, a public election committee is an organized group of voters outside of political parties which participates in local or European Parliament elections.