Lithuania election winner includes populist party in coalition talks

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By Andrius Sytas

VILNIUS (Reuters) – Lithuania’s Social Democrats, who won last month’s parliamentary election, said on Friday they had decided to include in a new coalition government a populist party whose leader is standing trial for alleged antisemitic statements.

Nemunas Dawn party founder and leader Remigijus Zemaitaitis resigned from parliament in April after the Constitutional Court ruled that he had broken his oath by stirring up hatred against Jews in social media last year.

Zemaitaitis in September went on trial over the social media posts, charged with inciting antisemitic hatred and playing down the Holocaust. He has said that the posts were not antisemitic and denies any wrongdoing.

It was not immediately clear if Zemaitaitis himself would be appointed to the cabinet.

The Social Democrats have been in talks with several parties to form a coalition after they won 52 seats in the 141-member parliament, defeating the centre-right Homeland Union with just 28 seats.

In the election campaign, both parties said they would refrain from including Nemunas Dawn, which took third place with 20 seats, in any coalition they led.

The Social Democrats are also in talks with the For Lithuania Party, which holds 12 seats in the new parliament.

Together the three parties would hold 84 seats, above the 71 seats required for a majority.

“The coalition would consist of three parties, the Social Democrats, For Lithuania and Nemunas Dawn,” Social Democrat deputy leader and the party’s proposed candidate for prime minister Gintautas Paluckas told reporters after meeting the leaders of the other two parties.

A coalition agreement could be signed next week, he said.

Paluckas said he was not bound by the pledge to sideline Nemunas Dawn, as it was made by the Social Democrats’ leader Vilija Blinkeviciute, who declined to head the new government following the parliamentary vote.

“I have never said that Nemunas Dawn cannot be in coalition… Today you are talking to me (not Blinkeviciute)”, Paluckas said.