Populist Parties and the Party System in Lithuania

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the influence of populism and populist parties in Lithuanian party system. For this purpose, this paper reviews the polarization and democratization of the Lithuanian party system and the populism index, and examines whether populism similar to the hard-line populism that has recently been spreading in Hungary and Poland is emerging in Lithuania. Section 2 summarizes the background and characteristics of the ‘semi-presidential system’, which can be said to be the biggest feature of Lithuania, and examines the characteristics of the overall political system and the development of democracy. Section 3 summarizes Lithuania's electoral system and the results of the past eight general elections, and examines the effective number of political parties and electoral volatility. Section 4 analyzes the characteristics of Lithuanian political parties and party system and distinguishes types of party system. In Section 5, the conclusion confirms that Lithuanian party system has been transitioning from a polarized multi-party system to a moderate multi-party system through the results of the EP election in June and the general election in October 2024.