Conservatives, liberals seek no-confidence vote against electoral commission member

Lithuania’s opposition Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats and Liberal Movement plan to initiate a no-confidence vote against Central Electoral Commission member Laura Matjošaitytė after reports that she advised the Nemunas Dawn party as a lawyer and sought to conceal the relationship, LRT reported.

“We have already prepared an initial draft and will begin collecting signatures tomorrow morning for a no-confidence motion against this particular member of the Central Electoral Commission,” Giedrė Balčytytė, a member of the Homeland Union parliamentary group, told BNS on Monday.

She said the Conservatives would propose that parliament express no confidence in Matjošaitytė and dismiss her. Balčytytė said the facts that had emerged raised serious doubts about whether Matjošaitytė could continue working on the commission.

“There is sufficient political grounds to express no confidence,” Balčytytė said, adding that lawmakers were assessing whether Matjošaitytė met the highest standards of independence, impartiality and transparency required of an institution overseeing the electoral process.

She said she expected the Liberal Movement parliamentary group to join the motion.

Liberals said Matjošaitytė may have breached the oath she swore to the state. The Liberal Movement parliamentary group also said on Monday that it had asked the Justice Ministry to assess whether her undisclosed advice to Nemunas Dawn violated public and private interest rules.

According to Liberal Movement parliamentary group leader and Seimas Deputy Speaker Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen, Matjošaitytė acted dishonestly by concealing her ties to Nemunas Dawn and failing to recuse herself from commission meetings that examined the party’s finances.

Čmilytė-Nielsen said Matjošaitytė had confused public and private interests and created a risk to the stability of the country’s democracy. She said parliament had a duty to declare no confidence in Matjošaitytė, whom it elected by secret ballot.

BNS reported that Matjošaitytė advised Nemunas Dawn before the parliamentary elections and sought from the outset to conceal the relationship. The news portal Delfi reported on Monday that in September 2024, slightly more than a month before the elections, she emailed the party’s deputy chairman, Robertas Puchovičius, a draft response to the Central Electoral Commission concerning the party’s funding sources.

In the same email, she asked Puchovičius to transfer the response to a Word document he had created so that her metadata would not remain. Neither the party nor Matjošaitytė, who is now a commission member, declared their previous cooperation.

Matjošaitytė initially refused to say whether she had been paid by the party, but later said she had not earned any money. She has declined to comment on the details of her professional relationship with Nemunas Dawn, citing lawyer-client confidentiality.

The Central Electoral Commission is currently examining the scope of the advice Matjošaitytė provided to the opposition Nemunas Dawn party.

Matjošaitytė chaired the commission from 2017 to 2021. She returned as a commission member after her candidacy was put forward by then Justice Minister Rimantas Mockus, who had been delegated by Nemunas Dawn.

In May 2025, the newly formed commission considered violations related to Nemunas Dawn’s political campaign financing. Matjošaitytė voted in favour of finding violations in some votes and abstained in others. She said the votes did not create a conflict of interest or grounds for recusal because she had not provided advice to political organisations since returning to the commission.