Lithuanian police to looking into ex-presidential candidate’s controversial remarks

May 14, Pozirk. Lithuania’s Prosecutor General Nida Grunskienė has directed police to look into allegations made by former presidential candidate Eduard Vaitkaus in Minsk.

On May 13, Belarusian state media quoted Vaitkaus as saying that President Gitanas Nauseda had been elected illegally and that Lithuania had embarked on the path of eliminating Lithuanians and losing its statehood, BNS reported.

Vaitkaus finished fifth in the 2024 presidential race with 7.31 percent of the vote. He was defeated in the 2008 and 2020 parliamentary elections.

He has been in Minsk since May 13. He gave a news conference at the office of the state-run BelTA news agency and an interview to Belarus 1 and met with leaders of the pro-government Biełaja Ruś party.

He described Nauseda as an illegitimate president and branded Belarusian opposition activists “extremists.”