Foreigners win right to vote in elections

Representatives of the ruling Social Democratic/Social Liberal coalition and the righ-twing opposition have reached a compromise on a constitutional amendment that will allow foreigners with permanent residence status to participate in municipal elections.

All the major parties have welcomed the compromise, reached on May 21. Parliament is due to change Article 119 of the constitution in the beginning of June, giving aliens the right to vote and be elected to local governments.

Lithuanian officials are now starting to take a keener interest in just how many such people there are in Lithuania, and who they are.

The planned change to the law would come into force on Jan. 1, 2004, the date Lithuania is likely to join the European Union.

The center-left government wanted to introduce the change immediately but was blocked by the Conservative Party. To aprove a constitutional amendment requi-res the support of at least 94 MPs out of the total 141. The amendment should now be easily ap-proved anyway, because of the current consensus among Social Democrats, Social Liberals, Libe-rals and Conservatives.

There are not many countries in Europe with fewer aliens than Lithuania as a result of its cautious immigration policy following independence in 1990.

The then Parliament, headed by Vytautas Landsbergis, an-nounced that all residents of Lithuania could get citizenship.

According to Almantas Gavenas, director of the immigration department at the Interior Ministry, 25,000 people currently have permanent residence permits to live in Lithuania.

"This number of new voters will really have no significant influence over election results," Gavenas said.

Parliamentary Chairman Artu-ras Paulauskas echoed his thoughts, calming the nerves of any Lithuanians worried about the prospect of suddenly finding themselves with an Asian or Western European mayor.

"The number of foreigners is so small it will not influence any election results."

About 12,000 permanent residence permits have been issued to Russian citizens, some of whom arrived after independence. How-ever, there are others - mostly elderly pensioners - who did not take Lithuanian citizenship for ideological reasons.

More than 50 percent of Rus-sian citizens residing in Lithuania cast their ballots for Russia's Communist Party during Russia's last parliamentary election, which was held at the Russian Embassy in Vilnius and the Russian Consu-late in Klaipeda. Only 5 percent voted for Russia's pro-Western Conservatives.

There are no pro-Russian parties with a share in municipal councils.

There are also 1,700 Belarusians, 1,100 Ukrainians, 300 Poles, 300 Kazakhs and 200 Latvians residing in Lithuania. The other 9,400 are a diverse mix of nationalities, ranging from the United States and China to Cameroon and Sweden.

Vilnius, with 7,600 foreigners, is home to the largest foreign population. The port city of Klaipeda has the second largest with 3,000, and Visaginas hosts the third with 1,600.

Although immigration levels are currently low, Lithuania is gradually changing from a transit to a host country for illegal immigrants. The number of illegal migrants detained in the country dropped from approximately 1,600 in 1996 to 107 in 2001.

However, the number of applications for political asylum is rising. In 1999, 303 foreigners applied for political asylum in Lithuania, but this figure rose to 425 in 2001.

Asylum seeker status was granted to three people last year, and another 266 people were permitted temporary residence in Lithuania for humanitarian reasons. This was a rise from 80 such cases in 2000.

Lithuania, like the rest of Europe, has a rapidly aging population and the lack of young workers will soon be felt. "The numbers of immigrants will increase after Lithuania joins the EU. Immigra-tion is a positive process," Gavenas said.