This March—for the first time since Lithuania regained its independence—direct mayoral elections will take place throughout the country. However, a survey on the candidates' plans for reducing social exclusion and cooperating with local NGOs revealed that either these issues are not important to them, or the candidates have no intentions to cooperate with NGOs. Each municipality is replete with acute social problems, but only 64 out of 400 candidates responded to the survey. A third of them thought that NGOs weren't sufficiently included in the decision-making process in their municipality.