Conservative ex-finance minister Ingrida Simonyte won a paper-thin victory over political novice Gitanas Nauseda in round one of Lithuania’s presidential election on Sunday, sending both to a tight May 26 run-off set to focus on inequality and poverty in the Baltic eurozone state.
Centre-left Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis vowed to quit after he was eliminated from the run-off having finished in third place.
Conceding that “the failure to get into the second round is an assessment of me as a politician,” Skvernelis told reporters that he would “step down on July 12.”
He did not rule out early elections. The next regularly-scheduled parliamentary elections are due in October 2020.
Although Lithuanian presidents do not directly craft economic policy, bread and butter issues and tackling corruption have dominated the campaign.
Simonyte, who is popular with wealthy, educated urban voters, garnered 31.13 percent of the vote compared to 30.95 for Nauseda who advocates a welfare state, full official results showed early on Monday.
Skvernelis whose populist approach resonated with the rural poor took 19.72 percent of the vote contested by a total of nine candidates.