A man votes during presidental elections in Vilnius, Lithuania, 12 May 2019 | Valda Kalnina/EPA-EFE Close race ahead in Lithuania’s presidential election The two contenders in the run-off are both economists with center-right views.

The two candidates to become Lithuania's next president are locked in a tight race ahead of Sunday's election.

Former Finance Minister Ingrida Šimonytė and economist Gitanas Nausėda are competing to replace President Dalia Grybauskaitė, who cannot run again after two consecutive terms in office. Both are running as independents.

They were neck-and-neck in the first round on March 12, which saw Šimonytė win 31.31 percent of the vote, narrowly beating Nausėda to the top spot by 0.37 percentage points. The Lithuanian electoral commission said that 3,935 votes were all that stood between them — in a country of 2.5 million eligible voters.

But as neither candidate received 50 percent in the first vote, a second round will be held this Sunday, coinciding with the final day of voting in the European Parliament election. No opinion polls are expected to be published ahead of the vote.

Šimonytė, 44, a former MP, was finance minister during the global financial crisis when Lithuania’s GDP dropped by almost 15 percent.

In Lithuania's semi-presidential system, the main duties of the president are foreign and security policy, but domestic issues were the major campaign talking points.

Despite having the backing of the conservative Homeland Union-Christian Democrat party, she has drawn support from young, liberal voters for her progressive social policies, which include support for same-sex civil partnerships and working toward greater representation of women and ethnic minorities in politics and public life.

Homeland Union MP Rasa Juknevičienė, who served as defense minister when Šimonytė was finance minister, praised her as a straight-talking leader and said she would be "more clear and open" than other politicians.

Nausėda, 54, a former chief economist at SEB Bankas and lecturer, has no affiliation with any party. With little experience in politics, his campaign is focused on emphasizing his independence, suggesting he can cooperate with all parties in government.

“Being an independent candidate allows me to represent the whole of society,” he told POLITICO. “And Lithuania needs a president who can act as a unifier.” He added that he wanted to create a sense of “social solidarity."

Both candidates are economists with center-right views who want to unite a society they see as divided. They also emphasize the importance of long-term policy making and constructive political debate.

Margarita Šešelgytė, associate professor at Vilnius University’s department of international relations and political science, said the first round's results had been “quite surprising,” with two very similar candidates making it to the run-off.

“They are representing the same part of the electorate with very small ideological differences,” she said, while noting that Nausėda is considered the more conservative of the two candidates.

She added: “It might be a positive trend when people get tired of populists and choose those who rationalize their statements.”

Speaking after the first round, outgoing President Grybauskaitė said: “The election showed the maturity of Lithuanian society. People have values that cannot be affected by populism or blackmail."

In Lithuania's semi-presidential system, the main duties of the president are foreign and security policy, but domestic issues such as the economy and social welfare were the major campaign issues ahead of the vote.

“Neither [candidate] seems to have a flagship policy for foreign and security policy,” said Egle Murauskaite, a Lithuania-based senior researcher at the University of Maryland’s ICONS project, adding that neither was as well-connected in Brussels as Grybauskaitė had been when she started her first term as president.

Grybauskaitė served as European commissioner for budget before becoming Lithuania's first female president in 2009.