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Of Lithuania’s three countrywide polls that may happen this yr, the European Parliament (EP) election normally receives the least consideration. Vladas Gaidys, a sociologist and head of pollster Vilmors, is even slightly misplaced for phrases about them.
“To let you know the reality, I have not given [the EP election] a lot consideration”, he says. “Everyone seems to be extra within the presidential ones. My first response could be that folks right here do not actually differentiate between the roles [of the elections].” Of the yr’s three elections, he too finds the EP contest to be the least attention-grabbing.
“Probably the most attention-grabbing, in fact, is the presidential election. There you possibly can look a candidate within the eye, like in athletics, or a horse race. It’s more durable to look their events within the eye, besides, there’s nonetheless pleasure there. However right here [the EP] is one thing very distant. Your pursuits are being represented, nevertheless it takes a specialist to grasp the topic.”
Mr Gaidys says that one will search laborious to search out any particular European Parliament election marketing campaign occurring in Lithuania.
“For those who searched, you can discover it. These already within the European Parliament, I believe, wish to keep for one more time period. It takes 5 years to grasp the way it works. [Social Democrat leader] Vilija Blinkevičiūtė is the apparent instance right here. Clearly she isn’t drawn to this nation, the place she is on the mercy of journalists. Over there, you’re coping with heads of state and authorities…”
A European wage
Vytautas Dumbliauskas, a political scientist at Mykolas Romeris College (MRU), says solely half-jokingly that the EP election is just of curiosity to those that are on occasion lists.
“The EP doesn’t decide the lifetime of an strange individual very a lot. It’s considerably powerless. The European Fee, which isn’t elected by anybody, has extra energy than a parliament elected by residents”, he argues.
However voter…