Currently there are 12 persons trying to take part in the presidential elections, i.e. Zigmantas Balčytis, Linas Balsys, Kristina Brazauskienė, Dalia Grybauskaitė, Vladas Lašas, Jonas Lašinis, Artūras Paulauskas, Rolandas Paulauskas, Naglis Puteikis, Bronis Ropė, Valdemar Tomaševski ir Artūras Zuokas. They will become candidates if they manage to get at least 20 thousand signatures of voters supporting the particular candidate.
We would like to note that during last presidential elections in 2009 the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) has registered eight candidates to stand for elections, but not everyone has collected the required number of signatures.
Finally there were 7 presidential candidates approved. Below we present the list of presidential candidates of 2009 with the number of signatures collected by every candidate. Then, 5 years ago, Valdemar Tomaševski managed to collect the highest number of signatures - 36 981.
Such a big support for V. Tomaševski was not affected even by the fact, that the forms for the signatures collection were handed to Tomaševski two weeks later than to others. At first, the CEC did not want to issue the forms because of the Pole's Card owned by V. Tomaševski. After proving, that this document does not interfere with taking part in elections, another documents were requested. CEC asked to present the birth certificate of the candidate's parents, who were born in 1935 in Vilnius and in Vilnius Region, so to demonstrate that V. Tomaševski is a citizen of Lithuania as of origin. But some CEC members did not like the fact, that they were born during the Polish times, therefore they asked to present the birth certificates of the candidate's grandparents, who were born in the Vilnius Region, but during the times of Tsarist Russia. And finally, after fulfilling all the requirements by the candidate, CEC has issued the forms – there were 8 votes for and even 4 against – though Tomaševski had much less time than other candidates.
| Row No. | Approved candidate's name | Provided number of signatures to CEC |
| 1. | Valdemar Tomaševski | 36 981 |
| 2. | Dalia Grybauskaitė | 36 025 |
| 3. | Loreta Graužinienė | 33 575 |
| 4. | Algirdas Butkevičius | 32 417 |
| 5. | Česlovas Jezerskas | 27 096 |
| 6. | Kazimiera Danutė Prunskienė | 25 058 |
| 7. | Valentinas Mazuronis | 25 033 |
Last week, Artūras Paulauskas and Artūras Zuokas announced that they have already collected the required number of voters' signatures. As today the electoral staff of Valdemar Tomaševski informed, the candidate has collected 40 thousand signatures (information from Monday, 10th March 2014).
Based on BNS
Row No.
