G. Nausėda promises to indicate his membership in the Communist Party in the candidate’s questionnaire

In October last year, the Seimas adopted an amendment to the Election Code, requiring candidates to indicate not only their current party membership, but also the parties they belonged to before, including the Communist Party.

G. Nausėda confirmed last April that he joined the Communist Party in May 1988 and called this decision a mistake of his youth. Still, he said he sees a “hunting state” that “becomes very systematic” as the 2024 presidential election approaches.

When running for president in 2019, G. Nausėda did not indicate his former membership in the questionnaire, but he emphasized that he had not committed a violation, as the question about membership in parties or political organizations was optional.

Several dozen current parliamentarians did not indicate their affiliation to the Communist Party in the questionnaire submitted by the CEC. It was not necessary to fill in this section of the questionnaire.

The visits to the regions are not related to the election campaign

G. Nausėda says that his visits to the regions are not related to the election campaign.

“If you look at 2019, 2020, of course, then objective obstacles to such visits began, but I said from the beginning that I will be an active president who will travel to the regions,” the president said.

“Regional policy is important to me, I fight for reducing the gap between big cities and regions. A president who declares one, but does not visit the regions and no one has seen him there, I do not like such a policy,” he added.

According to the head of the country, his current visits to the regions are a continuation of what he did in the previous years of his term.

“I’m not really running any election campaign, if you look at the things we talk about, it’s about people’s everyday problems, everyday issues, sometimes more global foreign policy issues,” said G. Nausėda.

“There is no election campaigning during those meetings,” he said.

Do not feel anxious about uncollected signatures

G. Nausėda, according to the data of Thursday afternoon, has not yet collected the required number of signatures supporting his candidacy in the presidential elections.

The head of the country assures that he is not worried about this.

“Take your time and you will be first, the wisdom of the folk nation says. (…) Believe me, there will be more signatures than needed,” said the president.

Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė, representative of the Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats (TS-LKD), is the only candidate in the presidential elections who has collected the required number of signatures – 20 thousand. She did that on the first day by collecting signatures only electronically.

Signatures can be collected until March 28. They began to be collected on Wednesday by applicants who submitted application documents, currently there are 11 out of 14 of them.