The European Union's budget chief will become Lithuania's first woman president following a landslide victory in a vote overshadowed by the Baltic country's ailing economy, preliminary results showed Monday. With all ballots counted, Dalia Grybauskaite amassed 69 percent of the vote, the election commission announced. The commission said turnout was nearly 52 percent, high enough to avoid a runoff.
The results were expected to be confirmed later Monday. Lithuania _ along with neighbours Estonia and Latvia _ ranks among Europe's most depressed economies. EU statistics this week showed the economy plummeted nearly 10 percent in the first quarter of 2009 compared with the previous three months. Unemployment in March was 15.5 percent, a dramatic jump from 4.3 percent a year earlier. By choosing Grybauskaite, a former finance minister, voters were hoping that she would use her financial expertise for a speedy recovery from the deepening recession.
``I am ready to carry this burden of responsibility, and I am sure that the people of Lithuania will never regret the decision to vote for me,' Grybauskaite told a group of cheering supporters at a party in downtown Vilnius. The second-placed finisher was Social Democrat lawmaker Algirdas Butkevicius, with 11 percent, while the other five candidate all received less than 7 percent, the commission said.
Grybauskaite, who is set to be inaugurated on July 12, said she would head to Brussels Monday to start procedures for her resignation as EU budget commissioner. She said she believes she can be replaced by a Lithuanian.
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