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Lithuania holds a presidential vote as anxieties rise in the Baltics over Russia and war in Ukraine

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Lithuania holds a presidential vote as anxieties rise in the Baltics over Russia and war in Ukraine
News

News

Lithuania holds a presidential vote as anxieties rise in the Baltics over Russia and war in Ukraine

2024-05-10 12:08 Last Updated At:12:11

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Lithuania is holding a presidential election on Sunday at a time when Russian gains on the battlefield in Ukraine are fueling greater fears across all of Europe about Moscow's intentions, but particularly in the strategically important Baltic region.

The popular incumbent, Gitanas Nausėda, is favored to win another five-year term. But there are eight candidates running in all, making it unlikely that he or any other candidate can win the 50% of the votes needed to win outright on Sunday. In that case, a runoff would be held two weeks later on May 26.

The president's main tasks in Lithuania’s political system are overseeing foreign and security policy, and acting as the supreme commander of the armed forces. Those duties and the nation's strategic location along NATO's eastern flank amid a larger geopolitical standoff between Russia and the West add heft to the role despite Lithuania's relatively small size.

There is great concern in Lithuania, and in neighboring Latvia and Estonia, about Russia's gaining momentum in Ukraine. All three Baltic states declared independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union and took a determined westward course, joining both the European Union and NATO.

Nausėda, a moderate conservative who turns 60 a week after Sunday's election day, has been a strong backer of Ukraine, a position shared across most of the political spectrum. During his time in office, Lithuania has also given refuge to many who have fled an authoritarian crackdown in neighboring Belarus and increased repression in Russia.

Nausėda, a former banker who entered politics with his successful presidential run in 2019, is seen as the “safe choice for voters of almost all ideological persuasions," said Tomas Janeliūnas, an analyst at Vilnius University's Institute of International Relations and Political Science.

Polls show that his main opponents are Ignas Vėgėlė, a populist lawyer, who is in second place according to recent opinion polls, and Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė, who is in third place in the surveys.

Not all voters view Nausėda as the safer option.

Asta Valanciene, a teacher from Vilnius, said that she would vote for Šimonytė because of the prime minister’s longer experience in politics than newcomer Nausėda.

“I would rather give her a chance than witness another five years of this random guy in office. I simply trust professionals,” Valanciene said.

A former finance minister, Šimonytė became prime minister in 2020 after a failed presidential run in 2019, with Nausėda winning that election with 66% of the votes in the runoff.

Vėgėlė gained popularity among some Lithuanians during the COVID-19 pandemic by harshly criticizing the lockdown and vaccination policies of the current government.

A second-place win for Vėgėlė could propel him to a prominent role in national politics before Lithuania's parliamentary election this fall — and would be a sharp blow to the prime minister, said Rima Urbonaitė, a political analyst at Mykolas Romeris University in Vilnius.

“For first place, everything is almost clear, but it's hard to say who else would get into the second round. Nausėda’s chances of reelection are high. However, this time, second place becomes very significant,” Urbonaitė said.

While both Nausėda and Šimonytė are strong advocates of greater military spending and big supporters of Kyiv, several other candidates call aid to Ukraine an invitation for Russia to invade Lithuania.

Vėgėlė's comments on the issue of aid to Ukraine have sometimes been vague, and he has mocked those who advocate increasing defense spending to 4% of gross domestic product, double NATO's target.

A referendum is also on the ballot Sunday. It asks whether the constitution should be amended to allow dual citizenship for hundreds of thousands of Lithuanians living abroad.

Lithuanian citizens who adopt another nationality currently must give up their Lithuanian citizenship, creating vulnerabilities for a nation whose population has fallen from 3.5 million in 1990 to 2.8 million today.

If it passes, the parliament would be able to amend the 1992 Constitution so people who have acquired Lithuanian citizenship by birth will be able to keep it if they acquire citizenship of another country "friendly to Lithuania."

A similar attempt to change the fundamental law failed in 2019 because turnout was below a required 50% of registered voters to be valid.

FILE - Lithuania's Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte speaks during a news conference following his meeting with Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk at the government's headquarters in Vilnius, Lithuania, on March 4, 2024. Lithuania is holding a presidential election on Sunday May 12, 2024 at a time when Russian gains on the battlefield in Ukraine are fueling greater fears across all of Europe about Moscow's intentions, but particularly in the strategically important Baltic region. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis, File)

FILE - Lithuania's Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte speaks during a news conference following his meeting with Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk at the government's headquarters in Vilnius, Lithuania, on March 4, 2024. Lithuania is holding a presidential election on Sunday May 12, 2024 at a time when Russian gains on the battlefield in Ukraine are fueling greater fears across all of Europe about Moscow's intentions, but particularly in the strategically important Baltic region. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis, File)

FILE - Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, stands with Lithuania's President Gitanas Nauseda after addressing a media conference at the Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania during the Three Seas Initiative Summit and Business Forum in Vilnius, on April 11, 2024. Lithuania is holding a presidential election on Sunday May 12, 2024 at a time when Russian gains on the battlefield in Ukraine are fueling greater fears across all of Europe about Moscow's intentions, but particularly in the strategically important Baltic region. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis, File)

FILE - Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, stands with Lithuania's President Gitanas Nauseda after addressing a media conference at the Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania during the Three Seas Initiative Summit and Business Forum in Vilnius, on April 11, 2024. Lithuania is holding a presidential election on Sunday May 12, 2024 at a time when Russian gains on the battlefield in Ukraine are fueling greater fears across all of Europe about Moscow's intentions, but particularly in the strategically important Baltic region. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis, File)

FILE - Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda speaks during a joint media conference with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte at the Presidential palace in Vilnius, Lithuania, on April 2, 2024. Lithuania is holding a presidential election on Sunday May 12, 2024 at a time when Russian gains on the battlefield in Ukraine are fueling greater fears across all of Europe about Moscow's intentions, but particularly in the strategically important Baltic region. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis, File)

FILE - Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda speaks during a joint media conference with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte at the Presidential palace in Vilnius, Lithuania, on April 2, 2024. Lithuania is holding a presidential election on Sunday May 12, 2024 at a time when Russian gains on the battlefield in Ukraine are fueling greater fears across all of Europe about Moscow's intentions, but particularly in the strategically important Baltic region. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis, File)

JERUSALEM (AP) — The helicopter crash in which Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the country’s foreign minister and other officials were killed is likely to reverberate across the Middle East, where Iran’s influence runs wide and deep.

That's because Iran has spent decades supporting armed groups and militants in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and the Palestinian territories, allowing it to project power and potentially deter attacks from the United States or Israel, the sworn enemies of its 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Tensions have never been higher than they were last month, when Iran under Raisi and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei launched hundreds of drones and ballistic missiles at Israel in response to an airstrike on an Iranian Consulate in Syria that killed two Iranian generals and five officers.

Israel, with the help of the United States, Britain, Jordan and others, intercepted nearly all the projectiles. In response, Israel apparently launched its own strike against an air defense radar system in the Iranian city of Isfahan, causing no casualties but sending an unmistakable message.

The sides have waged a shadow war of covert operations and cyberattacks for years, but the exchange of fire in April was their first direct military confrontation.

The ongoing war between Israel and Hamas has drawn in other Iranian allies, with each attack and counterattack threatening to set off a wider war.

It's a combustible mix that could be ignited by unexpected events, such as Sunday's deadly crash.

Israel has long viewed Iran as its greatest threat because of Tehran's controversial nuclear program, its ballistic missiles and its support for armed groups sworn to Israel's destruction.

Iran views itself as the chief patron of Palestinian resistance to Israeli rule, and top officials for years have called for Israel to be wiped off the map.

Raisi, who was a hard-liner viewed as a protégé and possible successor of Khamenei, chastised Israel last month, saying “the Zionist Israeli regime has been committing oppression against the people of Palestine for 75 years.”

“First of all we have to expel the usurpers, secondly we should make them pay the cost for all the damages they have created, and thirdly, we have to bring to justice the oppressor and usurper," he said.

Israel is believed to have carried out numerous attacks over the years targeting senior Iranian military officials and nuclear scientists.

There is no evidence Israel was involved in Sunday's helicopter crash, and Israeli officials have not commented on the incident.

Arab countries on the Persian Gulf have also long viewed Iran with suspicion, a key factor in the decision of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to normalize relations with Israel in 2020, and of Saudi Arabia to consider such a move.

Iran has provided financial and other support over the years to the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which led the Oct. 7 attack into Israel that triggered the Gaza war, and the smaller but more radical Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which took part in it. But there is no evidence that Iran was directly involved in the attack.

Since the start of the war, Iran's leaders have expressed solidarity with the Palestinians. Their allies in the region have gone much further.

Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group, Iran's most militarily advanced proxy, has waged a low-intensity conflict with Israel since the start of the Gaza war. The two sides have traded strikes on a near-daily basis along the Israel-Lebanon border, forcing tens of thousands of people on both sides to flee.

So far, however, the conflict has not boiled over into a full-blown war that would be disastrous for both countries.

Iran-backed militias in Syria and Iraq launched repeated attacks on U.S. bases in the opening months of the war but pulled back after U.S. retaliatory strikes for a drone attack that killed three American soldiers in January.

Yemen's Houthi rebels, another ally of Iran, have repeatedly targeted international shipping in what they portray as a blockade of Israel. Those strikes, which often target ships with no apparent links to Israel, have also drawn U.S.-led retaliation.

Iran's influence extends beyond the Middle East and its rivalry with Israel.

Israel and Western countries have long suspected Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons in the guise of a peaceful atomic program in what they see as a threat to non-proliferation everywhere.

Then-President Donald Trump's withdrawal from a landmark nuclear pact between Iran and world powers in 2018, and his imposition of crushing sanctions, led Iran to gradually abandon all the limits placed on its program by the deal.

These days, Iran is enriching uranium to up to 60% purity — near weapons-grade levels of 90%. Surveillance cameras installed by the U.N. nuclear agency have been disrupted, and Iran has barred some of the agency's most experienced inspectors. Iran has always insisted its nuclear program is for purely peaceful purposes, but the United States and others believe it had an active nuclear weapons program until 2003.

Israel is widely believed to be the only nuclear-armed power in the Middle East but has never acknowledged having such weapons.

Iran has also emerged as a key ally of Russia following its invasion of Ukraine, and is widely accused of supplying exploding drones that have wreaked havoc on Ukraine's cities. Raisi himself denied the allegations last fall in an interview with The Associated Press, saying Iran had not supplied such weapons since the outbreak of hostilities in February 2022.

Iranian officials have made contradictory comments about the drones, while U.S. and European officials say the sheer number being used in the war in Ukraine shows that the flow of such weapons has intensified since the war began.

In this photo provided by Moj News Agency, rescue teams' vehicles are seen near the site of the incident of the helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Varzaghan in northwestern Iran, Sunday, May 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying President Raisi, the country's foreign minister and other officials apparently crashed in the mountainous northwest reaches of Iran on Sunday, sparking a massive rescue operation in a fog-shrouded forest as the public was urged to pray. (Azin Haghighi/Moj News Agency via AP)

In this photo provided by Moj News Agency, rescue teams' vehicles are seen near the site of the incident of the helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Varzaghan in northwestern Iran, Sunday, May 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying President Raisi, the country's foreign minister and other officials apparently crashed in the mountainous northwest reaches of Iran on Sunday, sparking a massive rescue operation in a fog-shrouded forest as the public was urged to pray. (Azin Haghighi/Moj News Agency via AP)

An Iranian woman prays for President Ebrahim Raisi in a ceremony at Vali-e-Asr square in downtown Tehran, Iran, Sunday, May 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying President Raisi, the country's foreign minister and other officials apparently crashed in the mountainous northwest reaches of Iran on Sunday, sparking a massive rescue operation in a fog-shrouded forest as the public was urged to pray. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

An Iranian woman prays for President Ebrahim Raisi in a ceremony at Vali-e-Asr square in downtown Tehran, Iran, Sunday, May 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying President Raisi, the country's foreign minister and other officials apparently crashed in the mountainous northwest reaches of Iran on Sunday, sparking a massive rescue operation in a fog-shrouded forest as the public was urged to pray. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

People pray for President Ebrahim Raisi in a ceremony at Vali-e-Asr square in downtown Tehran, Iran, Sunday, May 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying President Raisi, the country's foreign minister and other officials apparently crashed in the mountainous northwest reaches of Iran on Sunday, sparking a massive rescue operation in a fog-shrouded forest as the public was urged to pray. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

People pray for President Ebrahim Raisi in a ceremony at Vali-e-Asr square in downtown Tehran, Iran, Sunday, May 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying President Raisi, the country's foreign minister and other officials apparently crashed in the mountainous northwest reaches of Iran on Sunday, sparking a massive rescue operation in a fog-shrouded forest as the public was urged to pray. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

FILE - People gather around a component from an intercepted ballistic missile that fell near the Dead Sea in Israel, Saturday, April 20, 2024. The apparent crash of a helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the country's foreign minister and other top officials is likely to reverberate across the Middle East. Tensions have soared since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, and Israel and Iran directly traded fire for the first time ever in April. (AP Photo/Itamar Grinberg, File)

FILE - People gather around a component from an intercepted ballistic missile that fell near the Dead Sea in Israel, Saturday, April 20, 2024. The apparent crash of a helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the country's foreign minister and other top officials is likely to reverberate across the Middle East. Tensions have soared since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, and Israel and Iran directly traded fire for the first time ever in April. (AP Photo/Itamar Grinberg, File)

FILE - Iranian worshippers chant slogans during an anti-Israeli gathering after Friday prayers in Tehran, Iran, Friday, April 19, 2024. The apparent crash of a helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the country's foreign minister and other top officials is likely to reverberate across the Middle East. Tensions have soared since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, and Israel and Iran directly traded fire for the first time ever in April. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)

FILE - Iranian worshippers chant slogans during an anti-Israeli gathering after Friday prayers in Tehran, Iran, Friday, April 19, 2024. The apparent crash of a helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the country's foreign minister and other top officials is likely to reverberate across the Middle East. Tensions have soared since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, and Israel and Iran directly traded fire for the first time ever in April. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)

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