A leftist coalition headed by a former communist leader made a strong showing in Lithuanian parliamentary elections Sunday, appearing to surpass the ruling Conservatives, according to partial voting results.
The Social Democratic coalition, led by one-time Communist Party boss Algirdas Brazauskas, had won 33 percent of the vote with ballots from 536 out of 2,027 polling stations counted, the election commission reported.
Conservatives, facing popular anger over high unemployment, had just 7 percent of the early vote. In the 1996 election that brought them to power, they won more than 40 percent of the final vote.
The center-left New Union party was second with 21 percent of the early count. The center-right Liberal Union had 11 percent of the first votes counted. The Farmers Party had 10 percent. The Liberal Union is expected to fare better when results from Vilnius are included in the count.
Final preliminary results were expected Monday, with all 141 seats in the parliament at stake.
If the vote is split among three or four parties, it seemed unlikely that any one party would win enough seats to form an administration on its own. That could mean lengthy negotiations to hammer out a workable coalition government.
