VILNIUS — Less than ten percent of Lithuanians are satisfied with their government, according to a poll released Friday by the Spinter Research.
The poll came on the cusp of two parliamentary elections with low voter turnout. One will continue in a runoff later this month. The poll, commissioned by the Delfi.lt news website, shows that nearly 79 percent of respondents say the Cabinet of Ministers was doing a “bad” or “rather bad” job. Only 0.6 percent of respondents said the cabinet was doing “rather fine.”
“The broad perception is that Lithuanian politicians are indifferent to the problems of ordinary Lithuanians,” Kestutis Girnius, a political analyst and professor at the Vilnius University, told Baltic Reports. “It’s reaching an almost dangerous level.”
Mindaugas Jurkynas, another political science professor at Vilnius University, said the global economic crisis is partly to blame for voter unhappiness.
“People are dissatisfied with the results the government brings in,” Jurkynas told Baltic Reports. “Nobody wants to implement unpopular measures.”
When asked why there was not a larger drive to replace unpopular members of the current government, Jurkynas said that “when the economy starts moving up, I guess a queue for the government will appear.”
One indicator of constituent dissatisfaction came out in a special Seimas elections held last night in Vilnius-Šalčininkai and Šilalė-Šilutė. In their respective regions, a total of 17 candidates attracted 42.8 percent and 36.4 percent. The special elections were held because the two previous incumbents were elected to the European Parliament.
Šalčininkai Mayor Leonardas Talmontas of the Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania Party, won the Vilnius-Šalčininkai election handily with over 77 percent of the vote.
The vote in Šilalė-Šilutė did not garner enough voters, so there will be a runoff election on November 29th between Jonas Gudauskas, Homeland Union-Christian Democrats Party candidate, and Remigijus Žemaitaitis, the Order and Justice Party candidate. Both candidates in the latter election received less than 30 percent of the vote.
“Turnout in by-elections are always low,” Girnius said.
However, even full-scale elections do not typically attract a large majority of voters in Lithuania. In the 2004 Seimas elections, 46 percent of voters in Vilnius-Šalčininkai turned out, while 43 percent did in Šilalė-Šilutė.
“Voter turnout has dropped in new democracies across Central and Eastern Europe for various reasons, and this turnout is relatively high,” said Jurkynas. “It reflects the same pattern as the last parliamentary election and it is hard to convince people to come to elections just for one district.”
Although the Social Democrats lost in Šilalė-Šilutė, where they have historically done well, Girnius did not think this indicated a larger trend towards a more broadly conservative government. “I think the Social Democrats did not have a very good candidate,” he said. “This was local, local.”
