Lithuanian Parliament picks bomb hoaxer as Speaker

Lithuania's newly-elected Parliament has chosen as its new Speaker a popular television talent show host once convicted of placing a prank call about a bomb in a hotel.

The Speaker is first in line to lead the ex-Soviet state, which joined the EU and Nato in 2004, if the President dies in office or is dismissed.

Lithuania's centre-right opposition beat a Social Democrat-led coalition last month in elections dominated by voters' worries about economic slowdown and double-digit inflation.

The 141-member Parliament, the Seimas, elected Arunas Valinskas by a vote of 79 to 58 in a second ballot late after he failed to get a majority in the first vote.

"It was the first test for the ruling coalition, and I am happy we have passed it," Mr Valinskas, 41, said after the vote.

Mr Valinskas's National Resurrection Party, formed a few months before the Parliamentary elections, unexpectedly won 16 seats in the October vote and joined a four-party centre-left coalition.

His wife, a pop singer, was also elected to the Baltic state's Parliament on the party list, which included a number of other performers.