Kaunas conservatives open vote to choose mayoral candidate
Saturday 29th August 2026 on 07:45 in
Lithuania
Kaunas conservatives have begun a two-day open vote to select their candidate for mayor in the 2027 municipal elections, LRT reported, citing BNS.
Five candidates are competing for the nomination: public figure and businessman Šarūnas Jasiukevičius, Kaunas City Council member Andrijana Filinaitė, biophysicist and scientist Rokas Mickus, journalist Dainoras Lukas and Audronė Baronienė, chair of the party’s Dainava branch.
About 2,000 people are eligible to vote, including roughly 1,000 members of the Homeland Union Lithuanian Christian Democrats who belong to the party’s Kaunas branches and a similar number of party supporters who are not members.
Voting will take place on Saturday and Sunday. Party members can vote electronically, while supporters must cast their ballots at the party headquarters.
“We turned to Kaunas and invited residents, together with our party members, to join us in open elections and decide what kind of right-wing candidate they would like to see in Kaunas,” party chairman Laurynas Kasčiūnas told BNS.
He said the five candidates had presented their strengths during debates and that the most important point was that Kaunas itself would make the decision.
Executive secretary Kamilė Gogelienė told BNS that a candidate will be elected in the first round if they receive more than half of the votes cast. If no candidate reaches that threshold, a second round will be held in two weeks.
The party says it was the first in Lithuania to organise open candidate elections, which it calls celebrations of democracy and allows both party members and supporters of its values to participate in.
Visvaldas Matijošaitis has led Kaunas City Municipality since 2015 and is seeking re-election with the United Kaunas committee. He won the previous municipal elections in the first round, while the conservative candidate Vytautas Juozapaitis placed third with 9.61 percent of the vote.
Direct elections for mayors and municipal councils will be held in spring 2027.