Labor Party leads pre-election polls

  • 2008-10-08
  • TBT Staff in cooperation with BNS

Viktor Upaskich's Labor Party has a narrow lead in pre-election polls.

VILNIUS 's Apre-election poll has indicated that Lithuania'sopposition Labor Party and Order and Justice Party are the most likely to winthe upcoming parliamentary elections.

In the poll, which was conducted by the RAIT pollster fromSept. 5 -12, 10.5 percent of respondents said they would support the LaborParty and another 10.1 percent said they would vote for the Order and JusticeParty.

About 21.1 percent of respondents said they would not votein the elections.

Some 8.3 percent of those polled stated support to the opposition HomelandUnion - Lithuanian ChristianDemocrats. The ruling Social Democrats and the recently-established NationalResurrection Party was supported by 5.7 percent and 4 percent of respondents,respectively.

Other parties were supported by less than 3 percent of those polled.

According to the survey 941 permanent residents of Lithuania,39.9 percent of those planning to come to the polls were still undecided on theparty to support and another 3.8 percent refused to specify the politicalforce.

Though the part holds popular support, the Lithuanian gay and lesbiancommunity has attacked the Order and Justice party over it's purported lack oftolerance toward minority groups.

The gay and lesbian website www.gayline.lt said that the ruling Social Democrats were the most tolerant party on the list.

"This year we can clearly see the politicians who respect us, homosexual,bisexual and transsexual persons… Thanks to the Social Democrats, we were notcrossed out of the Law on Equal Opportunities, and certain candidates of theparty are politicians actively defending human rights," the Web site said.

General parliamentary elections are due to take place on Oct. 12. A parallelreferendum on the future of the Ignalina nuclear power plant is due to takeplace on the same day.