Seimas approves Skvernelis as prime minister

The candidature of the 46-year-old former police chief and interior minister was endorsed in a vote of 90 to four with 33 abstentions.

Skvernelis still needs to be formally appointed by President Dalia Grybauskaitė. He will then have up to 15 days to form his Cabinet and have it endorsed by the president and present the new government and its program to the parliament for approval.

The new government will take office if its program is supported by a majority of parliamentarians present in the voting.

Skvernelis, who is a not member of any party, topped the LPGU’s list for the October parliamentary elections, in which the party scored a resounding victory.

Born in Kaunas in 1970, Skvernelis finished a secondary school in Kapsukas (now Marijampolė) and in 1994 graduated from Vilniaus Gediminas Technical University with a degree in mechanical engineering. Two decades later, he received a master’s degree in law from Mykolas Romeris University.

Skvernelis in 1994 started working as an assistant at the Lithuanian Police Academy (now Mykolas Romeris University) and four years later began his career in the law enforcement system at the Trakai Police Commissariat, where he served as a traffic police commissioner inspector.

Skvernelis rose gradually through the ranks to become deputy commissioner general of the Lithuanian police in 2008 and was promoted to commissioner general in 2011. He was appointed interior minister in 2014, but stepped down last spring after announcing his plans to run in the October parliamentary elections with the LPGU.

Skvernelis has said that he speaks English, Russian and Polish. He is married and has a son and a daughter. His hobbies include sports, gardening and history.