Nausėda says election commission member’s situation raises questions

President Gitanas Nausėda said Laura Matjošaitytė’s situation raises questions and should first be assessed by the member of Lithuania’s Central Electoral Commission and the parliament that delegated her to the post, LRT reported.

“The story certainly raises certain questions. I think that Ms Matjošaitytė herself must first assess the consequences or damage caused by this story, as must the Seimas, which delegated her to serve,” Nausėda told reporters on Wednesday after a meeting of the State Defence Council.

Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius said he did not have detailed information about Matjošaitytė’s situation. He said he knew that the State Commission for Ethics in Public Service was investigating the matter and that it was also being considered by the Seimas Committee on Legal Affairs and Law Enforcement.

According to Sinkevičius, parliament and the committee will have to assess the legal aspects of the case, including whether Matjošaitytė should have recused herself from considering certain issues and whether her unpaid services should have been declared.

Questions about Matjošaitytė arose after the news portal Delfi reported that she may have advised the Nemuno Dawn party before the 2024 parliamentary election and helped it prepare a response to the Central Electoral Commission.

Nemuno Dawn leader Remigijus Žemaitaitis said the party had consulted Matjošaitytė on various issues but had not paid her. Matjošaitytė also said she had not received “a single euro” for the consultations. The Central Electoral Commission said it had found no expenses for her legal services in the party’s submitted financial documents.

Delfi also reported that Matjošaitytė had sought from the outset to conceal her consultations with the party. The portal said that in September 2024, more than a month before the parliamentary election, she sent the party’s deputy leader, Robertas Puchovičius, a draft response to the commission that she had prepared. She asked him to transfer the response into a Word document he had created so that her metadata would not remain. Puchovičius told Delfi he did not remember receiving such an email.