Tuesday 27 February 2007

Municipal elections and the power of statistics


On Sunday Lithuanians went to elect their municpal leaders, well as the turn out shown, Lithuanians rather did not go for that option... 36.5% of voting population came, what do you make of this number?


Socialdemocrats said that this number represents satisfaction of electorate in the policies that their municpal leaders were developing (SDP won last elections and these one too), others were scraped of their right to vote few months before elections, by forbidding popullation abroad to participate in the poll. Fare enough... you don't live, you don't vote, but on the other hand, I do have my property in my town, I do care of how my community evolves and not allowing to vote does not raise incentive to return to the town that has no political credibility when it comes to an expressed civic position of a citizen...


This weekend Estonians are electing their Parliament and their prime minister has already expressed his vote on-line... Estonians were able to elect online their municipal governments already in 2005, while in Lithuania it is just an issue for a debate! This fact is a clear act of unwilingness to provide voters with the necessary tool to participate in the electoral process...




Election result (amount of mandates received):


1. Social Democrats - 302


2. Conservative - 256


3. Liberal Centre Pary (Zuokas) - 182


4. Liberal Democrats (Paksas) - 181


5. Peasant party - 141


6. Labour party - 111


7. Social liberals - 97


8. Lithuanian Christian Democrats - 95


9. Polish electoral action - 53


10. Lithuanian Liberal Movement - 51




To end this bitter post with a funny note, what do you make out of these statistics:




Eurobarometer poll European Social Reality published by the European Commission shows that 14% of Lithuanian men are responsible for cleaning the house; 13% of men are responsible for doing the ironing. Men from Sweden and Luxembourg clean home more often that Lithuanians, but in terms of ironing Lithuanians are the leaders.









Aren't we a proud nation of Ironing men! :)






1 comment:

Albert Caspari said...

Renaldas, thank you - aciu - for information and comment. Do you have any idea why it is so hard to get any information from Lithuania - if not talking Lithuanian? I do not mean the stuff for tourists, but more news about "what is going on", daily news, and so on. Lithuanian News agencies want to earn money from every foreigner interested to read each lonely line of "their" news, the Lith. Foreign Ministry has cancelled their news service already few years ago. No wonder, why nobody cares, and no one knows about Lithuanian views.

Greetings from Germany,

Albatros
www.litauen.blogspot.com