Presidential candidate Gitanas Nauseda smiles during the second round of Lithuanian presidential election in Vilnius, Lithuania May 26, 2019. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins
VILNIUS (Reuters) – Former central bank board member and economist Gitanas Nauseda won Lithuania’s presidential election on Sunday after his opponent Ingrida Simonyte conceded.
Nauseda, 55, had 74 percent of the vote, according to election authority results after a quarter of the ballots were counted. Ingrida Simonyte, 44, a former finance minister in a center-right government, stood at 26 percent.
Nauseda, a household name because of his role as chief economist at a top bank, has pledged to follow the tough stance set out by current President Dalia Grybauskaite, the Baltic nation’s “Iron Lady” and one of the European Union’s most outspoken critics of the Kremlin.
Reporting by Andrius Sytas, Writing by Johan Ahlander in Stockholm; Editing by Niklas Pollard and Jane Merriman