Skvernelis, Karbauskis see their approval ratings fall

The poll also showed a decline in the approval rating of Ramūnas Karbauskis, chairman of the ruling Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union (LFGU), down to 46 percent, from 51 percent.

President Dalia Grybauskaitė tops the popularity poll with an approval rating of 64 percent.

Observers say that the politicians’ positions on the new Labor Code, alcohol restrictions and a reduced VAT rate on district heating could have had an impact on their ratings.

“Things are being overdone as to alcohol and the scrapping of the reduced rate on heating shows indifference toward ordinary people,” Kestutis Girnius, associate professor at Vilnius University’s International Relations and Political Science Institute, told BNS.

Tomas Janeliunas, a political scientist, told BNS that the falling approval ratings signaled that people were losing patience as they had pinned high hopes on the LFGU and the specific leaders.

The survey shows that the approval rating of the LFGU as a party stabilized, with 26 percent of respondents saying they would vote for it if general elections were held next Sunday, unchanged from a month ago.

The conservative Homeland Union–Lithuanian Christian Democrats held onto its number two spot with 14 percent support, up by four percentage points from March.

The Lithuanian Social Democratic Party stayed at number three with 10 percent support, followed by the Liberal Movement with 8 percent. Changes in the parties’ rankings were within the error margin.

Other parties would not clear the 5 percent hurdle required to enter the parliament.

RAIT polled 1,021 people aged between 15 and 74 years on Apr. 8-25. The results of the survey have an error margin of 3.1 percent.