Early voting in the presidential election and referendum is underway, queues stretched across the capital

As soon as the polling stations opened their doors, Delphi since the morning he visited the municipality of Vilnius district. The first residents who wanted to vote in the elections had already arrived here.

On Tuesday afternoon, there was a line of residents at the polling station in Lukiškiau Square in Vilnius. I had to wait about 30 or 40 minutes to cast my vote.

Until Thursday evening, voters will be able to vote in all 60 municipalities from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., regardless of where they have declared their place of residence.

On Tuesday, the Minister of Economy and Innovation, Chairperson of the Freedom Party Aušrinė Armonaitė, Vilnius District Mayor Robertas Duchnevičius, Chairman of the Lithuanian Peasants and Greens Union (LVŽS) Ramūnas Karbauskis and other politicians voted in advance.

The chairwoman of the Freedom Party, Aušrinė Armonaitė, urged the citizens of the country to participate in the presidential elections and voting on the multiple citizenship referendum, which will be held on Sunday.

“These elections are more important than many may think. They decide the future of Lithuania. I voted for the future – for Dainioi Žalim, the candidate nominated by our freedom party. And I voted for a greater Lithuania,” A. Armonaitė, who took part in the preliminary voting, told reporters on Tuesday.

She emphasized that Lithuania is dealing not only with the issue of another country’s leader, but also with the referendum on citizenship. Therefore, continued the leader of the “free places”, voter turnout is also extremely important in this matter.

“Thousands of citizenships are revoked every year. Don’t we need our citizens? I think it is necessary”, A. Armonaitė testified.

She also responded to criticism of the controversial campaign advertisement of the Freedom Party on the social network Facebook, which depicted a baby on fire.

“If more people come to the referendum, I think it’s good. Maybe it was a provocation, but if more people learned about the referendum, if more people vote, at the end of the day it will be better for Lithuania,” the politician explained.

To whom it would mean support in case of failure – does not comment

Although public opinion polls are not favorable for the presidential candidate of the Freedom Party, Dainis Žalim, the Minister of Economy and Innovation has not revealed yet whether the political force she leads will support any other candidate who has reached the second round of the election in case of failure.

“The elections have just started – today is the first day. First of all, let’s wait for them to finish. Then we will decide,” said the politician.

The main day for the presidential election and the referendum on the preservation of citizenship is Sunday. As informed by the Central Election Commission (CEC), the doors of the election precincts will also open at 7 am on May 12 and wait for voters until 8 pm. On that day, it will be possible to vote in any polling station, a total of 1,895 places throughout Lithuania.

Virginijus Sinkevičius, the European Commissioner and representative of the democratic list to the European Parliament, also cast his vote in advance.

ELTA reminds that 8 candidates will compete for the post of the head of the country – Gitanas Nausėda, who is seeking a second term, Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė nominated by the conservatives, representative of the Freedom Party, former chairman of the Constitutional Court (KT) Dainius Žalimas, independent candidates Ignas Vėgėlė and Eduardas Vaitkus, of the party “Nemunas Aušra” ” founder Remigijus Žemaitaitis, Giedrimas Jeglinskas nominated by the Democratic Union “Vardan Lietuvos” and Andrius Mazuronis, chairman of the Labor Party.

During the first round of presidential elections in Lithuania, residents will also vote in a referendum on multiple citizenship. In the referendum ballot, it will be proposed to abandon the sentence currently written in the Constitution: “except for the individual cases provided for by law, no one can be a citizen of the Republic of Lithuania and another state at the same time”. This provision does not allow the preservation of Lithuanian citizenship after acquiring the citizenship of another state.