Lithuanian citizens will go to the polls on Sunday, 9 October, to elect the 141 MPs of the Seimas, but some polling stations have already opened on Wednesday for the so-called early vote. The Social Democratic party has been in government for 4 years, and Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevičius is still ahead in the pre-election polls, followed by the Peasant and Greens Union and by the coalition Homeland Union–Christian Democrats. “Fulfilling this civic duty is a sign of love for our homeland and of concern for its future. For us, Christians, it is a duty that comes from our commitment to the common good”, the bishops wrote in their message, calling on Lithuanians to go to the polls and to select their candidates according to a fundamental criterion: that of “moral culture”. A moral culture which seeks to promote “unity and solidarity, and which is often lacking in Lithuania today”. “The unconditional respect for human life, which has to be defended and protected from conception until natural death”, also when a person “has a disability or is affected by an incurable disease” is a fundamental principle of our democracy. “Solidarity begins in the family, a family based on marriage between a man and a woman”, the bishops explain. “We should not be passive observers of history, but active protagonists, in the awareness that respecting fundamental human values is a precondition for living in the land that our fathers have so wished to free”.