Lithuania election: Opposition parties win

GlobalPost

The opposition Social Democrats have won Lithuania's parliamentary elections and will form a coalition government, the Associated Press  reported.

The Social Democrats took 38 seats, while Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius' Homeland Union conservative party finished second, with 32 seats, Agence France-Presse reported.

The center-left Social Democrats said their party would form a coalition government with the leftwing populist Labor Party, which won 30 seats, and the rightwing populist movement Order and Justice, which won 11 seats, AFP reported. That means the coalition government will have a total of 79 seats in Lithuania's 141-seat parliament.

Voter turnout was said to be around 35 percent, according to AFP.

"I'm extremely satisfied," Social Democrat leader Algirdas Butkevicius told reporters, according to Agence France-Presse.

Labor counterpart Viktor Uspaskich also said Butkevicius was "certain" to become Lithuania's next prime minister.

More from GlobalPost: Lithuania: Labor Party in the lead after 1st-round parliamentary elections, according to exit poll

Butkevicius has promised to raise minimum wage, make the rich pay more tax and put back euro entry until 2015, a year later than the government hopes, reported BBC.

The Social Democrats, who had governed from 2001 to 2008, promised to form a coalition government that would end the European country's current austerity policies, noted the Associated Press. They also promised to spend more in order to improve living standards in Lithuania, which saw one of Europe's worst recessions in 2009 and 2010.

"People have sent the main message that they would like change in the economy and in the social sector, they want the new government to create new jobs and increase wages," Butkevicius said, according to Reuters.

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