Lithuania slips into postelection crisis

[October 29, 2012]  VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) -- Lithuania's president has dealt a blow to the center-left opposition bloc that won parliamentary elections, saying one of the three parties should be excluded from the next government because of allegations of voting fraud.

The Labor Party finished third in Sunday's election and has pledged to participate in a new, anti-austerity coalition led by the Social Democrats, who were first.

President Dalia Grybauskaite said Monday that while she was ready to ask the Social Democrats to form a government she believed that a party accused of electoral and financial fraud should not participate in a coalition.

Lithuanian prosecutors and election officials have accused at least two Labor Party members of bribery, with one allegedly buying votes from prison inmates.

The ruling conservative party finished second in the election.

[Associated Press]

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