Lithuanian lawmakers launch no-confidence process against election official

Lithuania’s parliament has collected the signatures needed to begin a no-confidence procedure against Central Electoral Commission member Laura Matjošaitytė, LRT reported on Tuesday.

The statement was signed by 33 lawmakers from the opposition Homeland Union Lithuanian Christian Democrats and Liberal Movement, as well as the ruling Democrats. Under the parliament’s rules, at least 29 signatures, or one fifth of all lawmakers, are required to dismiss a parliamentary appointee.

The initiators said publicly reported information about Matjošaitytė’s legal consultations for the Nemunas Dawn party, an alleged attempt to conceal them and her failure to recuse herself from votes concerning the party were sufficient grounds to conclude that she no longer met the trust requirement for a member of the commission.

The no-confidence statement said the cooperation had not been disclosed by either the party or Matjošaitytė. It also said that an attempt to remove metadata identifying the author of a document indicated that the connection with Nemunas Dawn had been deliberately concealed from the outset.

According to the statement, after concealing her relationship with the party, Matjošaitytė took part as a commission member in decisions related to Nemunas Dawn’s financing. She asked questions while the party’s financial reports were being considered, voted to postpone a decision and attended the meeting at which a decision on the financing of the party’s election campaign was adopted. Her recusal was not recorded in the minutes of any of those meetings.

The initiators said this conduct raised legitimate doubts about whether she had complied with the duty to recuse herself under the Law on the Coordination of Public and Private Interests, as well as with the principles of independence and impartiality set out in the Electoral Code and the requirement that commission members have an impeccable reputation.

The parliament’s rules provide for a secret ballot on no confidence. At least 71 votes, or more than half of all members of parliament, would be needed for the motion to pass.

Representatives of the ruling parties previously told BNS that the best solution would be for Matjošaitytė to resign herself. Parliament appointed her to the commission last spring on the recommendation of then Justice Minister Rimantas Mockus, who had been delegated by Nemunas Dawn.

BNS reported that Matjošaitytė, then working as a lawyer, advised Nemunas Dawn before the parliamentary election and sought to conceal the relationship from the beginning. The Delfi news portal reported on Monday that in September 2024, just over a month before the election, she emailed the party’s deputy chair, Robertas Puchovičius, a draft response to the Central Electoral Commission on the party’s sources of financing.

In the same email, she asked Puchovičius to transfer her response to a Word document he had created so that her metadata would not remain. Neither the party nor Matjošaitytė disclosed their former cooperation.

After initially refusing to say whether she had been paid by the party, Matjošaitytė later said she had earned no money from the work. She has declined to comment on the details of her professional relationship with Nemunas Dawn, citing attorney client confidentiality.

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

Matjošaitytė chaired the commission from 2017 to 2021. In May 2025, the newly formed commission considered alleged violations related to Nemunas Dawn’s political campaign financing. Matjošaitytė supported findings of violations in some votes and abstained in others. She said the votes did not create a conflict of interest or grounds for recusal because, after returning to the commission, she no longer provided consultations to political organisations.