VILNIUS, Oct. 26 (Xinhua) -- Lithuania's conservative Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats (TS-LKD) party has won the second round of parliamentary elections held on Sunday, preliminary results from the Central Electoral Commission showed Monday morning.
The TS-LKD secured 50 seats in the 141-seat unicameral parliament. The ruling Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Unions secured 32 seats and its leader Ramunas Karbauskis admitted his party's defeat and congratulated the conservatives on their victory.
"We don't have an initiative to form the ruling majority," Karbauskis was quoted as saying by local news website 15min.lt before midnight on Sunday.
Ingrida Simonyte, former minister of finance and leader of TS-LKD electoral list, announced on Sunday night that she was taking an initiative to build a ruling coalition with the Liberal Movement and the Freedom party. The two liberal parties won 13 and 11 mandates respectively.
Leaders of the three parties announced a joint declaration concerning the coalition formation.
"We are determined to work together in order to restore people's confidence in the state and among people and to form a new coalition and a new government led by Ingrida Simonyte. Lithuania will be stronger if political forces can make long-term agreements on the key issues of the country and social development. We are prepared to represent all citizens of Lithuania, not only those who specifically voted for our political parties," the declaration reads.
Simonyte, candidate for prime minister, said that her first job would be to review the budget and change the management model of the coronavirus crisis in order to involve more medical experts in decision-making.
"First of all, the method of management should be changed. In our view, it should first be very clear who is talking to whom and how decisions are being made," Simonyte was quoted as saying by local business news website vz.lt.
Based on the Constitution, the prime minister is appointed by the president with the parliament's consent. A prime ministerial candidate is recommended to the president by a party that wins the parliamentary elections.
In Lithuania, 70 members of parliament are elected in the multi-member constituency based on party-list proportional representation and 71 in single-member constituencies in a two-round system.
