Last December the Governing Council of the EAPL has offered Valdemar Tomaševski to stand in the presidential elections. Then the EAPL leader asked for some time to reflect, to consider all the arguments for and against and to analyse the political situation of the state. Today, after the chairman agreed to take part in the elections, the Governing Council officially decided to nominate Valdemar Tomaševski for elections of the president of Lithuania.

Not only the EAPL, but also lots of social organizations and various communities in the country waited for such a decision of the EAPL leader. There were numerous arguments for standing in the elections. First of all, lack of the EAPL candidate would cause void in the political arena, electors would misunderstand this as the EAPL has permanently inscribed into the political arena of Lithuania and enjoys increasing support despite not always favourable conditions and even attacks on the party. Not only Poles, but also representatives of other national minorities vote for the EAPL. We can list Russians, Belarusians, Tatars and others or even ethnic Lithuanians more and more often. Citizens of Lithuania recognize and appreciate honest attitude of the EAPL and its leader Valdemar Tomaševski. The party has never been embroiled in any corruption scandal while corruption, regrettably, is quite frequent in Lithuanian political life. The party has been drastically refusing (and continues to refuse) to use the support offered by business structures and continues to honestly and faithfully work in favour of all the voters. These are facts, not just words. Voters appreciate such honest attitude. After all, it is not a coincidence that among all the 40 parties of the country most of the tax write-off was made on behalf of the EAPL. Valdemar Tomaševski, as the leader of the party, is an example of honest politics, which Lithuania needs badly nowadays. Due to this and many other reasons we do not even consider making other decisions than taking part in the elections and promoting work that is based not only on above mentioned values, but also on those deriving from Christianity . These are namely the values that lead the EAPL representatives in everyday life. This is why we raised the initiative on the protection of unborn life and teaching of religion at schools. These initiatives are extremely important when speaking about current threats to the traditional family.

The EAPL managed to realise a very important principle of dedicated service to the citizens of the country by appointing proper people and by carrying out appropriate personnel policy. The EAPL deputies were the only ones among the parties of the ruling coalition who did not vote for the increase of deputies' salaries. There is no place for corruption in self-governments ruled by the EAPL representatives. They can be proud of real achievements in various fields. The self-governments of the Vilnius Region are excelling in infrastructural and social projects. For example, in the Vilnius district there were 5 new kindergartens built (in Avižieniai, Rudamina, Nemenčinė, Lavoriškės and Mickūnai), 2 hospitals (in Šumskas and Nemenčinė) and social centres (in Paberžė and Nemenčinė) over the past 10 years. The self-government of the Vilnius district is the only one in the country covering 25 per cent of the price (established by the State Commission for Prices and Energy) for heating, paying subsidies for cold water. Moreover, farmers owning less that 5 hectares of land are released from paying taxes for land. There is a lack of such solutions in other parts of Lithuania even though they are very important in difficult times of nowadays. To add, the self-government of the Vilnius district has virtually no debt in spite of the implementation of various projects and wide range of works carried out. This is a very positive exception to other self-governments of Lithuania.

It should be noted, that V. Tomaševski achieved good results in previous presidential elections of 2009. Then, he, the youngest candidate, took fourth place out of seven and obtained 5 per cent of votes in the state, while in the region, where he was known better, his success was astonishing. In Vilnius and Šalčininkai districts he gained 67% and 50% accordingly. This way his results were even better than the results of the current President D. Grybauskaitė (22% and 28% of votes). V. Tomaševski took second place in some of the self-governments, including Vilnius, and overtook the then leader of Social Democratic party A. Butkevičius. Today, honest and brave work of the EAPL chairman, his attention paid to every citizen is even more known, thus there is a real opportunity to improve his results and even hit the second round.

What was achieved in the Vilnius Region: first of all, uniting all the people of good will in order to create common welfare, taking care of a common man, living according to Christian values and promoting the education of children in this spirit (100% of children attend religion lessons in the Vilnius Region) – it is very important for our country.

The success of uniting all the people regardless their nationality, the success of honest and fruitful work of the representatives of authorities is partly identified with the EAPL chairman Valdemar Tomaševski, therefore we express our satisfaction that the party leader agreed to take part in the presidential elections. We think that all the positive achievements that were constituted in one region can be extended to the whole country. Inhabitants of Lithuania expect this and need this without any doubt. We highly appeal to you for supporting Valdemar Tomaševski; his activities and work can bring long-awaited positive changes, more honesty in politics and social justice in everyday life.

The EAPL Governing Council
12-02-2014