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The centre-left coalition now likely to take over promised during campaigning for parliamentary election that it would ease the pain by raising the minimum wage, shifting the tax burden towards the better off, and postponing adoption of the euro.
Lithuania is still heavily indebted, and if debt markets - which welcomed its predecessor's austerity drive - do not trust the plans to ease the belt-tightening, the cost of borrowing could go up so high the country plummets into another crisis.
The government of Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius had lost - having won praise from big European powers and the International Monetary Fund for its thrift. As one of the EU states hit hardest by the crisis, Lithuania was also an early convert to the austerity measures that have become the standard policy response to the debt turmoil that has spread across the region.
Algirdas Butkevicius, the former finance minister who leads the Social Democrats and is in the running to be new prime minister, reassured markets that any softening of austerity would be cautious and gradual.