Eight candidates will run in the presidential election in Lithuania on May 12, the election commission in Vilnius said on Monday.
The candidates have collected the required 20,000 voter signatures to take part in the direct election for the highest state office in the Baltic EU and NATO country, the commission said.
Among them is incumbent Gitanas Nausėda, who has been head of state since 2019 and is the clear favourite in opinion polls.
The ruling Fatherland Union is sending Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė into the race.
If no candidate achieves an absolute majority, the two best-placed candidates are set to go into a run-off two weeks later.
In Lithuania, the head of state primarily has representative duties, but compared to the German president, has more extensive powers in foreign and defence policy.
The Baltic state of 2.8 million inhabitants in north-eastern Europe borders the Russian Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad and Russia's ally Belarus.
Lithuania is set to become the focus of the German army, the Bundeswehr's, military engagement in the coming years. Since 2017, Germany has been leading a NATO task force there with around 1,600 soldiers, around half of whom are from the Bundeswehr.
Now the German government wants to permanently station a combat-ready brigade with up to 5,000 soldiers in the Baltic nation.