“Now, just a few days after the referendum, after the first round of the election, I do not think there is any rush for politicians to present a new solution to the people,” Čmilytė-Nielsen told Žinių radijas on Wednesday.
If it was an easy way to address the introduction of dual citizenship, decision-makers would have gone for that, according to her.
“Obviously, if there was a clear alternative to the referendum, it would already be exhausted. Attention and effort would already have been invested in it, and perhaps the problem would have already been solved. This is not the case here,” the Seimas speaker added.
Čmilytė-Nielsen struck on an optimistic note, suggesting that the citizenship referendum should bring the needed number of eligible voters to the polls sooner or later, if they see it as critically important.
Alongside with the presidential vote, Lithuanians on Sunday cast ballots in a binding referendum on dual citizenship. The referendum was deemed valid, with more than 50 percent of the eligible voters having had their say, but it failed to attract required votes.
The voter turnout in the referendum was 58.96%, data from the Central Electoral Commission (VRK) show.
For the referendum to pass, at least 50% of eligible voters should vote in favour of a proposed constitutional amendment.
With votes from all the 1,895 polling districts counted, the constitutional amendment allowing dual citizenship was backed by 74.13% of the voters, which is less than a half of all the eligible voters.
Dual citizenship is currently banned in Lithuania with few exceptions. Lithuanians automatically lose their citizenship once they become citizens of other countries.
The voter turnout in the previous referendum held five years ago was 53.16%. At the time, 73.92% of voters who cast ballots were in favour of dual citizenship. However, the referendum did not pass as fewer than half of all Lithuanian citizens supported the amendments.