Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda has approved the country’s new cabinet of ministers, BNS reports. He described the incoming centre-left government as more capable than the outgoing centre-right government of Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte. The Lithuanian Social Democratic Party (LSDP) will hold the post of prime minister and will have nine ministers in the new government, while the far-right Dawn of Nemunas party will have three and the centre-left Union of Democrats for Lithuania (DSVL) two ministers. The new ministers are due to be sworn in after the Lithuanian parliament, the Seimas, approves the new coalition government’s programme on 12 December 2024.
LSDP’s ministers will be Rimantas Sadzius, former member of the European Court of Auditors, as finance minister; Kestutis Budrys, the president’s chief national security adviser, as foreign minister; MP Dovile Sakaliene as defence minister; Vladislav Kondratovic, head of administration in the Vilnius District Municipality, as interior minister; MP Eugenijus Sabutis as transport minister; MP Raminta Popoviene as education minister; Inga Ruginiene, former chairwoman of the Lithuanian Trade Union Confederation (LPSK), as social security and labour minister; Marija Jakubauskiene, head of Vilnius University’s Health Sciences Institute, as health minister; and MP Sarunas Birutis as culture minister.
DSVL’s two ministers will be MP Lukas Savickas as economy and innovation minister and Zygimantas Vaiciunas as energy minister. Nauseda approved Ignas Hofmanas, chairman of the Lithuanian Agriculture Council (LZUT), for agriculture minister but rejected two other candidates proposed by the Dawn of Nemunas: Sigitas Podenas, head of the Nature Research Centre (GTC), for environment minister and Virginijus Kulikauskas, former head of the Lithuanian Prison Service, for justice minister. The leader of the Dawn of Nemunas, MP Remigijus Zemaitaitis, said that he had already proposed persons who were due to become deputy ministers to be appointed to the two ministerial posts.