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Just before the elections, the CEC received a subsidy of 1.8 million euros from the Labor Party, which was frozen during the corruption marathon.
The triumph of Aušrinė Armonaitė after the first round of the elections and the splashes of champagne. The biggest surprise of these Seimas elections was the Freedom Party, which appeared successfully not only in the big cities, but also in smaller cities and won 8 seats. Although, according to the latest polls, the party had to stay overboard without exceeding 5 percent.
“I told my team that the actual qualifications were on October 11 and that was true. However, of course we have seen those qualifications, of course we have discussed them, ”says Aušrinė Armonaitė, leader of the Freedom Party.
Communication experts say the newly formed party ran an active and even aggressive campaign, spending at least 100,000 euros. It is true that this is the smallest amount of all the great parties.
The lion’s share of about 50 thousand euros was assigned by the party to social networks: candidates instagram for advertising, for advertising Facebook, news portals.
It is true that one of the party’s founders, Remigijus Šimašius, was associated with SCL Elections, a company of the scandalous British company Cambridge Analytica, during the mayoral elections. The latter illegally collected population data for election campaigns via social media and undertook to create a voter database in Vilnius. Meanwhile, the Freedom Party denies any talk about these “black technologies” during the Seimas elections.
“It just came to our notice then. No additional consultants have been thought of, consulted, or conducted except myself and the media planning agency. Most of it was done by internal staff, who worked around the clock,” he says. Agnė Belickaitė, communications consultant for the Freedom Party.
Political communication expert Andrius Šuminas has no doubt that part of the party’s electoral success was determined by the active appeal of voters with the legalization of weed and the rights of homosexuals through social media.
“The Freedom Party has used online social media channels very strongly to reach its audience. And it is logical, because its voter is young, modern, energetic, who uses technology,” says Andrius Šuminas, an expert on political communication.
According to political scientist Kęstutis Girnius, the party’s leader, Aušrinė Armonaitė, was the one who contributed the most to the party’s success.
“Armonaitė ran a very active campaign, traveled a lot. He speaks in an attractive way. What he wants to say, he says it perfectly. I think it can have a positive effect. And as I say, a new party without sin. In each election of the Seimas, arises a new party that succeeds. After that, it may stumble later, “said political scientist Kęstutis Girnius.
The leader of the Freedom Party herself assures that she even visited the whole of Lithuania twice before the elections and communicated very actively with the voters. And the experts have no doubt that the success was determined by the image of the newcomers who had not yet achieved mush at the Seimas.
“I think they still had a wave of success enough, being new this year. And we don’t have a single election where newcomers don’t shine. This time the hour of the stars has dawned, for the Freedom Party “, says communication expert Arūnas Armanlis.
“When those results started to go, we could already see that the general result of the Freedom Party would be better than expected. If they already manage to gather so many votes in the province, then the people have accepted that party as novelty and freshness,” he says the political scientist Ainė Ramonaitė.
And Victor Uspaskich, the leader of the Labor Party, was calling out to the hearts of voters about the coronavirus and the meaning of life. The latter used not only the coronavirus for the election campaign, but also SEL, which has hundreds of thousands of followers on social media. In total, the Labor Party threw a large amount of money into the election campaign, at least 900 thousand euros. After all, even before the elections, the pocket of the Labor Party was supplemented by a subsidy of 1.8 million euros, which was frozen during the “black accounting” case.
“What they did it was already clear that the Labor Party would definitely return. Such activity, such aggressive communication and so precisely directed at the left voter had to pay off. But I expected even higher results in the single member,” says A. Armalis.
Former MEP, poker player Antanas Guoga, was added to the Labor Party rosters at the last minute, claiming that without Viktor Uspaskich, the Labor Party is only zero. It is true that Guoga, who joined the European Parliament six years ago thanks to the Liberal Movement, explained that he did not want to see parties as corrupt as the Labor Party.
“The aim is for the Labor Party to shrink so that there are no such parties in Lithuania, that is my goal. There is no hostility towards any person, but that policy does not satisfy me,” said Antanas Guoga, Labor Party candidate.
And now Guoga Masonry is behind the party leader.
“The president himself is a significantly better person than he was before I saw him,” Guoga said.
It is much closer to people, closer to health. You have made many positive changes. The man who impresses me now.
Political scientists have no doubt that the guarantee of the Labor Party’s success is none other than money and Viktor Uspaskich.
“Uspaskich is a very popular politician for various reasons. He was a popular politician when most thought he would go to jail for all cases of fraud. Now that he is justified, he tries to present himself as a wise, neutral politician and well desired by all” says K. Grinius.
In addition, political scientists associate the success of this party not only with the Uspaskich phenomenon, but also with the voters of the liquidated “Order and Justice” party. After all, the latter, along with the Labor Party, targeted a similar electorate during the last Seimas elections.
This year, “Order and Justice” has not been kept as a party at all. And if we look at 2016, the votes of both parties would be around 10 percent. Now the Labor Party has received less than 10 percent of them, ”says A. Ramonaitė.
Communication experts are in no rush to rate the Labor Party’s emergence in the first round of elections as exceptional success. So far, in terms of hundreds of thousands of sums spent and mandates received, this party claims the most expensive mandate: a vote of one person cost them 9 euros.
The latter obtained 9 seats in the Seimas elections, so that the chair of a parliamentarian sowed almost 100,000 euros for the Labor Party, more than that parliamentarian will receive a salary for the entire legislature.
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