He explained what distinguishes voters from irreconcilable enemies: TS-LKD and LVŽS

These conclusions can be drawn from the first results of the Study on Lithuanian National Elections presented some time ago. The head of this project is Ainė Ramonaitė, a professor at the Institute of International Relations and Political Sciences (VU TSPMI).

At the national conference “Lithuania after the 2020 elections”, VU TSPMI associate professor, political scientist Mažvydas Jastramskis presented a report entitled “Shifting Lithuanian Peasants and Union Greens: From the General Party to the Niche of? the Social Democrats? “

In it, he explained who the voter for LVŽS is and how it differs from other constituencies of the party.

“I want to see how the party that voted a lot in 2016 for the novelty of this party, new people, changes, if there have been certain changes in 4 years. “When we could see that their electoral profile was structured in very clear groups of society,” he said.

In his report, M. Jastramskis presented the percentage of votes received by the TS-LKD, LVŽS and the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party (LSDP) during the elections since 2008.

The LVŽS, which had obtained relatively few votes in previous elections, made the leap in 2016, when this political force also formed the ruling coalition.

According to M. Jastramskis, it cannot be said that TS-LKD has been “completely stable” since 2008, but there was no such clear drop that is visible in the LSDP.

“The impression is that in the 2016 Seimas elections, when the LVŽS rose and the LSDP fell more, and in the last year -in 2020, the recovery of the peasants is observed again, as of 2019 it coincides with the fall of the Social Democrats.

The idea is that we have seen in previous polls that in 2016, the peasants attracted the largest number of former Social Democratic voters. Perhaps they already occupy that niche of the Social Democrats previously occupied by the LSDP as one of the two main parties. It’s a question of who the voters are in that niche here, ”said the VU TSPMI political scientist in his report.

M. Jastramskis said that in the 2016 Seimas elections it was noted that the electorate of LVŽS did not differ in any way from voters of other parties in terms of their values.

“Then a couple of years passed and while doing an analysis of the 2019 presidential elections, I noticed that the issue of same-sex marriage is already being significantly related to the probability of voting for candidates. And it was Saulius Skvernelis, the LVŽS presidential candidate, who increased his chances of voting for him by not agreeing with such marriages, ”he said.

What is the difference between LVŽS and TS-LKD voter?

The political scientist of VU TSPMI M. Jastramskis explained from the data collected which is the voter of each party. Here, for example, the Soviet-era variable, when the unit of measure is chosen “disagree that it was better,” has a particular impact on TS-LKD voters.

The political scientist clarified that the chosen measure of the ratio means whether the respective category tends to vote more for the party or less than for the other. For example, those who support question X voted for party Y by 10%, those who did not support by 20%, which is a proportion of 0.5.

“People who had a negative view of the Soviet era were 6 times more likely to vote for the TS-LKD party in 2012, and about 4 times in the last elections. And there is such asymmetry with the peasants, people who are neutral or positive about the Soviet era, that they are not inclined to vote 6 or 3 times more than the peasants as voters of the TS-LKD, but there is some difference.

It is most visible in presidential elections. When people who evaluated the Soviet era in a neutral or positive way were more likely to vote for S. Skvernelis than people who evaluated negatively, ”said M. Jastramskis.

He said that in the elections to the PE and the elections to the Seimas of 2020, that proportion is decreasing again. The political scientist said the Labor Party had a distinctly pro-Soviet voter.

Although the LVŽS voter is sometimes said to receive a lower income, the available data does not make such a clear distinction.

“Many parties, or the main ones, do not have such a clear profile that voters with higher income or people with lower income should vote for them. It is sometimes said that LVŽS voters receive lower income, but that the results of the last elections to the EP show that both older and lower-income people tend to vote for both parties, ”explained the political scientist.

And the education variable shows more differences in party choices, but it is not as pronounced as the Soviet-era endpoint.

“Especially in the presidential elections, we see that I. Šimonytė was 1.5 times more likely to vote with higher education than those without it. And people who did not have a higher education tended to vote for S. Skvernel almost 2 times more than compared to a higher one. But after the presidential elections, the situation stabilized a bit, “said M. Jastramskis, political scientist at VU TSPMI.

He pointed out that the Labor Party voter is more likely not to have a higher education.

Jastramski said in his report that age was a crucial variable. For example, the last election showed that the LVŽS voter is larger than the Homeland Union.

“We are seeing a very clear change with the peasant voter from 2012. His voter was then in his 50s. And then it dances in the presidential elections at an average of 59 years, it falls slightly in the elections to the PE and the parliamentary elections of 2020. But the electorate is older than the Union of the Fatherland ”, said M. Jastramskis.

According to him, LVŽS and TS-LKD “exchanged places”.

“And here such a division of both parties takes place: if in the first period analyzed the voters of the TS-LKD are older, the parties then exchange those sides.” In the last Seimas elections, the LVŽS voter is on average 5 years older than the TS-LKD ”, said the political scientist of VU TSPMI.

The median age of Freedom Party voters is 36. And then the second-youngest party voters are the Homeland Unions, whose voter was 52 years old on average in the last election.

And the voters of the Liberal Movement have an average of 56 years.

“We cannot call this party a youth party. The National Union voter is now younger than the Liberal Movement voter,” he emphasized.

The residence factor works moderately, said M. Jastramskis. However, TS-LKD voters are, on average, more likely to be from a metropolitan area than a non-metropolitan area, and LVŽS is more likely to live outside a metropolitan area.

Value problems

At the Seimas submission stage, the gender neutral partnership bill presented by various representatives of the ruling coalition did not receive the necessary support and was returned to the initiators for improvement. The division on this issue is felt not only in the Seimas, but also in society.

Here, data collected by VU TSPMI researchers shows which party voters are in favor of granting more rights to the LGBT community.

It is worth noting that different questions were asked about the rights of the LGBT community in different years.

In 2012, you were asked to rate the statement “Homosexuality is not natural and should not be tolerated in society” on a scale from “yes” to “no.” In 2016, it is requested to evaluate the declaration on the legalization of the Association – “Same-sex couples must have the right to form a society.” And in 2019 and 2020, the question was about marriage: “Same-sex couples should have the same rights to marry as heterosexual couples.”

According to M. Jastramskis, although LVŽS voters did not pay much attention to this issue in 2016, this position is changing in the last elections.

“The homeland union, especially when I. Šimonytė ran in the presidential elections, has relatively higher support in that LGBT support group than those who do not. Of course, the TS-LKD indicator is moderate, but it is something like that.

And in the peasant electorate (…) since 2016, we see a very clear deviation. Because if in 2016 there was not much difference in the vote for the peasants according to these values, then it will begin to fall drastically. And now the people who are more conservative on this issue (LGBT, aut. P.) are more than twice as likely to vote for the peasants than the people who are liberal on this issue ”, presented the political scientist of the VU TSPMI.

Transforming people’s responses about Russia on a scale where 0 – the average position, more – looks at Russia more pragmatically than the average position, minus – more strictly, showed that this problem has a significant impact on the voter of the National Union, said the political scientist.

“The voters of this party are always below average, which means they support value politics more than the average Lithuanian. And the LVŽS is a bit above and is a bit moderately pragmatic than the average voter,” he said.

The data also showed that the Union de la Patria voter, on average, has the highest trust in political institutions.

“And what happens with the peasants is that he was a voter who did not trust much in political institutions, 2016 was definitely a difference with the Unión de la Patria. But when the peasants take over and the elections are held in 2019: the EP and the president, here the peasant voter is already quite different from the Unión de la Patria in terms of political trust. But something will happen in 2020.

Probably after the vote, the voter already knows that his party is not elected, the next coalition will continue to function and that political confidence falls suddenly, although the TS-LKD remains practically the same ”, commented M. Jastramskis on the confidence in the political institutions. .

What conclusions can be drawn?

At the national conference “Lithuania after the 2020 elections”, M. Jastramskis concluded that the choice between TS-LKD and LVŽS is separated by several factors.

“The Soviet era differentiates the choice between these two parties and the Russian question. And, for example, the metropolitan issue will be particularly prominent in 2019-2020. And the LGBT issue emerges in the 2019 presidential and 2020 parliamentary elections as a factor. differentiator between peasants and voters of the TS-LKD ”, he explained.

Therefore, M. Jastramkis stated that since the 2016 Seimas elections, the LVŽS as a party has become clearer: it has become a party of older and more conservative voters living outside the big cities.

Some characteristics, especially compared to TS-LKD, already noticed in 2016, did not change significantly. As then, there are differences in attitudes towards Russia, in the Soviet era, in political trust.

And alongside the partition of the Soviet era and Russia, the culture is getting stronger in Lithuania; At least in this analysis, the LGBT issue is represented.