In the Lithuanian parliamentary election, the public have voted against the conservative government that cut their pensions and wages.
Also, the voters dealt a double-blow to the government by rejecting its plan to build a EUR 6 billion ($7.8 billion) nuclear power station. Along with the parliamentary election, Lithuanians voted in a non-binding referendum on Sunday, the results of which showed two-thirds of voters rejecting construction.
The Christian Democrat party's Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius, who ruled Lithuania in a coalition with the Liberal Movement since 2008, had implemented a set of unpopular austerity measures when the country met with one of the world's deepest recessions.
It helped the government bring budget deficit under control and achieve a GDP growth of 5.8 percent, but economic output dropped by 15 percent, and thousands of unemployed youth left the Baltic nation in search of work. Lithuania has some of the lowest salaries in the European Union.
Early results suggest two leftist parties -- Labor and the Social Democrats -- are currently placed first and second and set to form a coalition together, possibly with a third party involved.
Labor party won most of the votes -- 26.7 percent - in Sunday's parliamentary elections, while a fellow left-wing Opposition group, the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party, came second with 20.75 percent. Kubilius' Homeland Union was pushed to the third spot with 11.22 percent of the vote, followed by the center-right Order and Justice Party, which took 9.74 percent.
Only 70 members in the 141-seat Parliament (Seimas) are chosen from national party lists, while the remaining 71 MPs are elected from local constituencies, election to which is scheduled to take place on October 28.
Order and Justice Party leader Rolandas Paksas told Lithuanian television that he hoped to discuss an alliance with Labor and the Social Democrats, which will help them together cross the threshold of majority in the first round.
The Lithuanian Central Elections Committee said 64.87 percent of voters were against the plan to build a new nuclear power plant along the Baltic states of Latvia and Estonia.
Although the results of the advisory referendum are non-binding, the no-vote puts a deal by the government and Japan's Hitachi Ltd. to construct the 1,300-megawatt nuclear-power station on hold.
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