Lithuania: legislative election next Sunday. The Bishops: “vote for those who support the weak, family life and care for Creation”

The citizens of Lithuania are called to vote on 11th October to renew the Seimas (National Parliament), but votes can already be cast in an “early” mode as from today. “It is an opportunity to express our beliefs, an opportunity to chose those MPs that we think can best represent us”, the Lithuanian bishops wrote in a message for the election. “The way our country will live in the next four years will directly depend on the efforts of the elected legislators”. The bishops call Lithuanians to “exert such right”, without letting “the uncertainty that has come to the fore in the last few months about the country’s epidemic condition dissuade them from doing their duty”, but they point out that “personal protective equipment should not be forgotten when going to vote”. The bishops also encourage them to “elect those nominees who share the values” of “compassion, mercy, attention to the weaker ones, social solidarity, natural families and the inviolability of life, care for Creation, and freedom for everyone’s good”. And they add: “By electing such nominees, we will not only be voting for a Christian society, we will also be voting for a cohesive, strong State”, “we will preserve the freedom conquered 30 years ago, and we will also contribute to its nourishment, and to the prosperity of a Lithuania based on Christian values”. In the pre-election polls, the favourite ones are still, through slightly less, the Homeland Union (Ts-Lkd) and the Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union (Lvzs), which are expected to fetch about 20%: the former one, a Centre-Right party, was the opposition party in the current legislature; the latter one is the Centre-Left party of which the outgoing prime minister Saulius Skvernelis is a member.
Valentina Bombelli