Vilnius - The Lithuanian-American candidate, Mr Valdus Adamkus, scored a wafer-thin victory yesterday in Lithuania's presidential election run-off, the electoral commission said.
Giving its "preliminary final" figures, the commission said Mr Adamkus gained 49.88 per cent of Sunday's ballot while his rival, the former prosecutor general, Mr Arturas Paulauskas, won 49.31 per cent after all 1.91 million votes had been counted.
Both men are political novices and said during the campaign that this meant they were untainted by past scandals or battles. Mr Adamkus (71) portrayed himself as a man of experience which Lithuania needed to guide it into the next century. He said his job as a former senior official in the US Environment Protection Agency (EPA) gave him valuable administrative skills and knowledge of the West. Mr Paulauskas (44) presented himself as a man of ideas.