Seimas to consider dismissing election commission member Matjošaitytė

Lithuania’s parliament, the Seimas, is due to decide on Tuesday whether to dismiss Central Electoral Commission member Laura Matjošaitytė, after reports that she advised the Nemuno aušra party, LRT reports.

The Seimas had been due to consider the proposal on September 24, but postponed it after Matjošaitytė did not attend the session. Speaker Juozas Olekas said she was away and said he hoped she would submit her own resignation.

Last month, opposition lawmakers from the Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats, the Liberals and the Democrats “For Lithuania” gathered enough signatures to put the dismissal proposal on the parliamentary agenda.

The Central Electoral Commission, the Lithuanian Bar Association and the Chief Official Ethics Commission are investigating Matjošaitytė’s conduct. The Special Investigation Service declined to open a pre-trial investigation.

The questions about her conduct arose after the news website Delfi reported that she may have advised Nemuno aušra and helped draft the party’s response to the electoral commission. Matjošaitytė said she was not paid for the advice.

Delfi also reported that in September 2024, more than a month before parliamentary elections, Matjošaitytė sent party vice-chair Robertas Puchovičius a draft response to the commission. In the email, she asked him to copy the text into a Word document he had created so her metadata would not remain. The commission said metadata showed that Matjošaitytė had drafted the party’s response to questions about membership fees.

Matjošaitytė chaired the commission from 2017 to 2021 and returned as a member last year. Her nomination was submitted by then-Justice Minister Rimantas Mockus.