Nausėda questions Matjošaitytės consultations for Nemuno aušra

President Gitanas Nausėda said information that Laura Matjošaitytė may have advised the Nemuno aušra party before the 2024 parliamentary election was not reassuring, LRT reported. He said the circumstances should be assessed further before he gave a final view.

“I do not think everything is in order here, but I will be able to give a final answer after becoming better acquainted with the situation,” Nausėda told reporters in Maišiagala.

Delfi reported that Matjošaitytė, a lawyer and former chair of the Central Electoral Commission, advised the party led by Remigijus Žemaitaitis on membership fee issues before the 2024 parliamentary election and helped prepare a response to the commission.

According to the report, she later became a member of the commission but did not publicly disclose the services she had provided to the party and did not recuse herself from discussions related to it.

Asked whether the party had paid her for the services, Matjošaitytė declined to disclose the information, saying it was protected by professional legal privilege. The Central Electoral Commission said it had found no expenses for her legal services in Nemuno aušra’s financial documents.

The Chief Official Ethics Commission received a complaint on Monday concerning the possible consultations. After reviewing the information and, if necessary, collecting additional supporting data, it will decide whether there are grounds to open an investigation. The Ministry of Justice said the information should be assessed by the ethics commission.

Parliament Speaker Juozas Olekas said the information was concerning and instructed the parliamentary Committee on Legal Affairs and Law Enforcement to collect additional information, according to LRT.

The Central Electoral Commission recently found that Nemuno aušra and its leader had seriously violated the law by accepting money from illegal sources during the 2024 parliamentary and presidential election campaigns. The commission said the party’s parliamentary election campaign had been financed through donations from legal entities and third parties.

The commission also found that the party had accepted and used 4,300 euros in membership fees paid through third parties, some of which came from a legal entity. It said Robertas Puchovičius, the party’s deputy chair and campaign headquarters chief, had acted as an intermediary in transferring a total of 24,200 euros from the companies Tvari statyba and Lajota to finance the party’s parliamentary election campaign.