Lithuania swings left in parliamentary polls

Austerity-fatigued Lithuanian voters swung solidly left in a parliamentary election, partial results showed, evicting the Conservative government which steered the Baltic nation through one of the world's deepest recessions but failed to reap the rewards of recovery. Figures from the national elections commission covering 892 of the country's 2,017 polling stations gave the leftwing populist Labour party 25.45 percent of the vote and their likely governing allies the centre-left Social Democrats 19.6 percent. Turnout was just over 50 percent. The figures showed the Conservatives with just 10.9 percent of the vote -- expected to rise as the count comes in from large cities where the centre-right tends to perform better -- and their Liberal Movement governing allies with 4.89 percent. The rightwing populist Order and Justice party, with which Labour and the Social Democrats plan to form a coalition, secured 9.35 percent of the votes cast. As the results rolled in, the leaders of Labour, the Social Democrats and Order and Justice put out feelers about forming a government, holding a closed-door meeting. "We're creating a working group to start consultations on a coalition," said Labour's Viktor Uspaskich afterwards. Seventy members of Lithuania's 141-seat parliament are elected by proportional representation from party lists in the first round. The remaining 71 are chosen in single-member constituency races, with two-candidate run-offs on October 28 where no candidate won a majority on Sunday. Less than half the constituency seats tend to be decided in the first round. But in past votes the final balance of forces has been sufficiently clear after the first round to enable the process of forming a government to begin immediately -- even if who gets which job is only announced after the second round. "We won't talk about the prime minister or ministers before the results of the second round are clear," said Uspaskich. The Russian-born ex-minister and businessman -- best known for his gherkin business -- is a controversial figure, having been subject to a party funding probe, and is highly unlikely to become premier. Social Democrat leader Algirdas Butkevicius is tipped to take the helm but would not be drawn. "We did not talk about that. So far we agreed only on forming a ruling majority," he said. The Lithuanian Peasants' and Greens' Union scored 6.48 percent, an ethnic-Polish party 6.16 percent and the new anti-graft Way of Courage movement 5.33 percent, the results showed. The Conservatives appeared to have paid the price for undertaking a tough austerity drive well beyond those of western members of the European Union, which Lithuania joined in 2004. The left-leaning parties pledge to raise the minimum wage and introduce a progressive income tax, but Butkevicius, a former finance minister, has played on his prudent credentials. He quit in 2005 when a Social Democrat-led government failed to close the gap between spending and revenue. Kubilius -- the only premier to survive a full term since Lithuania seceded from the Soviet Union in 1990 -- ousted the Social Democrats in the last election in 2008. His message then was that the Social Democrats let growth stoked by credit and wage hikes get out of hand and left the nation of three million people ill-prepared for hard times. Kubilius was also premier in 1999-2000, when Lithuania was lashed by the economic meltdown in neighbouring Russia. But the 2009 crisis was far deeper, as Lithuania's economy shrank by 14.8 percent. His government launched the austerity drive in response. "We took responsibility for crucial decisions and guaranteed a responsible fiscal policy. I hope this responsible policy will continue," Kubilius had said after casting his ballot on Sunday. Growth returned in 2010, at 1.4 percent, before hitting 6.0 percent in 2011, but analysts say too few voters have felt the benefits. The government forecast growth to slow down to 2.5 percent this year, and a rate of 3.0 percent in 2013. The left also pledges to "reset" ties with Moscow, rocky since independence and spiking over alleged market abuses by Russian energy giant Gazprom, Lithuania's sole gas supplier.