Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda won a landslide victory over Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė to win a second five-year term as Lithuanian president.
According to provisional figures from the Lithuanian Central Election Commission, Nauseda won 74.5% of the votes, while Šimonite received 24.1%.
Nauzeda, 60, is a moderate conservative and a strong supporter of Ukraine, positions shared across most of the political spectrum, and during his tenure Lithuania has provided refuge for many fleeing repression by Russia and an authoritarian regime in neighboring Belarus.
“Lithuania's independence and freedom are like a fragile vessel that we must cherish, protect and not break,” Nauseda said after the vote count on Sunday night, Baltic News Agency reported.
“We have very similar positions on fundamental issues, such as support for Ukraine and our stance on the Russian threat,” he added, referring to fellow Baltic allies the United States, Germany and Poland.
Nauseda, a former banker, entered politics when she won the 2019 presidential election. She and Simonytė won the first round of voting but fell short of the 50% needed to win the presidential election outright.
The election comes at a time when Russia's growing influence in Ukraine has raised concerns about Moscow's intentions, particularly in the strategically important Baltic Sea region.
Lithuania lies north of Poland and south of two other Baltic states, Latvia and Estonia. It separates Belarus, a Russian ally, from Kaliningrad, a militarily strong Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea coast that is separated from mainland Russia.
The main duties of the president in NATO member Lithuania's political system are to oversee foreign and defense policy and act as commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
Lithuania's strategic location on NATO's eastern flank makes the relatively small country's chair increasingly important at a time of rising tensions between Russia and the West over the war in Ukraine.
Before the votes were counted on Sunday evening, Šimonytė conceded defeat and congratulated his opponent.
Both Nauceda, who ran as an independent, and Simonyte, who became prime minister in 2020, have voiced support for Ukraine. The two also faced off in the 2019 presidential runoff election, with Nauceda winning with 66% of the vote.
Nauseda will be sworn in for a new five-year term in July. Šimonite said he would return to his duties as prime minister on Monday in Lithuania, a country of about 3 million people, Lithuanian television reported.
Turnout for Sunday's election was 49.15 percent.
