Lithuania's left-wing and populist opposition parties opened talks on forming a new government yesterday as austerity-weary voters evicted the Baltic state's Conservative-led coalition in a general election.
In power since 2008, the defeated Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius drove through biting spending cuts amid one of the world's deepest recessions, but the resulting economic recovery failed to woo voters.
Under Kubilius, Lithuania's economy clocked 1.4 percent growth in 2010, before hitting 6.0 percent in 2011, after shrinking by 14.8 percent in 2009, without resorting to a currency devaluation or an international bailout.