Lithuania presidential hopefuls: tone down Russia rhetoric

National Business

Lithuania presidential hopefuls: tone down Russia rhetoric

By LIUDAS DAPKUS Associated Press

May 25, 2019 02:40 AM

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Lithuanian presidential candidate, Former finance minister Ingrida Simonyte waves before the final debate of the electoral campaign with presidential candidate, Economist Gitanas Nauseda at the S. Daukanto Square, in front of the Presidential Palace in Vilnius, Lithuania, Friday, May 24, 2019. Gitanas Nauseda and a former finance minister Ingrida Simonyte held the top two spots in returns from Lithuania’s presidential election Sunday, May 26 and appeared headed to a runoff ballot later this month to choose a successor to incumbent Dalia Grybauskaite.


Mindaugas Kulbis

AP Photo


VILNIUS, Lithuania

The two contestants in Lithuania’s runoff election for a new president say they want to maintain the strict tone toward neighboring Russia, while easing sometimes harsh rhetoric.

Gitanas Nauseda, a prominent economist, and Ingrida Simonyte, a former finance minister, are vying to succeed the popular Dalia Grybauskaite, who has called Russia “a terrorist state.”

Both candidates have said they won’t go to Moscow and meet President Vladimir Putin unless Russia withdraws from Crimea, which it annexed from Ukraine in 2014. It sparked fears that other former Soviet republics could be next.

The campaign ahead of Sunday’s second round has been dominated by voters’ anger over economic inequality — one of the highest in the European Union — and corruption.

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