Presidential elections were held in

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

on 17 May 2009. A run-off would have been held on 7 June 2009, but was not necessary as

Dalia Grybauskaitė Dalia Grybauskaitė (; born 1 March 1956) is a Lithuanian politician who served as the eighth president of Lithuania from 2009 to 2019. She is the first and so far only woman to hold the position and in 2014 she became the first President of Li ...

was elected with 69% of the vote, with voter turnout just over the 50% threshold for the result to be validated.Lithuania gets first woman leader
BBC News, 18 May 2009 Grybauskaitė took office on 12 July as the country's first female president. This was only the second time since the restoration of independence that a Lithuanian president was elected without the need for a runoff, the first being in

1993 The United Nations General Assembly, General Assembly of the United Nations designated 1993 as: * International Year for the World's Indigenous People The year 1993 in the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands had only 364 days, since its ...

, when

Algirdas Brazauskas Algirdas Mykolas Brazauskas (, 1932 – 2010) was a Lithuanian politician who served as the fourth president of Lithuania from 1993 to 1998. He also served as the prime minister of Lithuania from 2001 to 2006. Brazauskas was the first democr ...

was elected with 61% in the first round.

Candidates

The Electoral Commission registered 14 candidates for the elections, whilst Vladimir Romanov's application was rejected. However, six candidates (Jonas Jankauskas, Vytautas Kundrotas, Algimantas Matulevičius, Algirdas Pilvelis, Vidmantas Sadauskas and Zigmas Vaišvila) failed to collect the 20,000 signatures required, and

Seimas The Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania (), or simply the Seimas ( ; ), is the unicameralism, unicameral legislative body of the Lithuania, Republic of Lithuania. The Seimas constitutes the legislative branch of Government of Lithuania, govern ...

Speaker Arūnas Valinskas ( National Resurrection Party) withdrew his candidacy. Seven candidates collected enough signatures to participate in the elections: *

, incumbent European Commissioner for Financial Programming and the Budget, former Minister of Finance (2001–2004) * Valentinas Mazuronis ( Order and Justice), member of the Seimas since 2004 * Kazimiera Prunskienė, first Prime Minister of Lithuania (1990–1991) and former Minister of Agriculture (2004–2008) *, Brigadier General of

Lithuanian Armed Forces The Lithuanian Armed Forces () are the military of Lithuania. The Lithuanian Armed Forces consist of the Lithuanian Land Forces, the Lithuanian Navy, the Lithuanian Air Force and the Lithuanian Special Operations Force. In wartime, the Li ...

and wrestler * Valdemar Tomaševski ( Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania), member of the Seimas since 2000 * Loreta Graužinienė ( Labour Party), member of the Seimas since 2004 * Algirdas Butkevičius (

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties Form ...

), former Minister of Finance (2004–2005) and former Minister of Transport and Communications (2006–2008) Grybauskaitė was supported by the Homeland Union and Liberal Movement.

Opinion polls

According to the opinion polls, Grybauskaitė was the undisputed leader in the race for the Presidency. Angus Reid Public Opinion, 11 March 2009

Results

References

External links

2009 Lithuanian presidential elections
VRK {{Authority control

Presidential election A presidential election is the election of any head of state whose official title is President. Elections by country Albania The president of Albania is elected by the Assembly of Albania who are elected by the Albanian public. Chile The p ...

Presidential elections in Lithuania