It's seven years since Lithuania became a trailblazer for European Union austerity amid an unprecedented slump. Despite uninterrupted economic growth since, disquiet over pay and opportunities in the tiny Baltic nation has left Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius' job in the balance.

While narrowly leading polls before elections on Sunday, support for Butkevicius' Social Democrats has shrunk on persistent emigration, sluggish salary growth and a procurement scandal that's worsened already frosty ties with President Dalia Grybauskaite. His coalition allies have also lost ground, while his two closest challengers could forge an alliance to usurp him.

Lithuania, a euro-area and NATO member that borders Russia and Poland, won plaudits for its response to one of the continent's worst recessions after the 2008 crisis. But the recovery hasn't stemmed an exodus of workers or triggered the kind of wage growth seen elsewhere in the region. Campaigning, rocked by graft scandals at parties including the Social Democrats, has focused on pledges of future prosperity, though tight fiscal is set to stay.

"Jobs and wages dominate voters' concerns, but high-profile corruption caseshave significantly rocked the political scene over the past year," said Otilia Dhand, senior vice president at Teneo Intelligence in Brussels. "The outlook for the formation of the next cabinet is unclear."

The Social Democrats will get 15.6 percent of the national vote, the Peasants & Green Union 14 percent and the conservative Homeland Union-Christian Democrats 13.7 percent, an Oct. 4 poll showed. Butkevicius' coalition partners -- the Labor Party and Order & Justice -- are near the 5 percent entry barrier, according to the survey, which had a 3.1 percentage-point margin of error.

Parties can also win seats in single-mandate constituencies, which account for 71 of parliament's 141 seats and where the Social Democrats have traditionally outperformed. A second round of voting in individual constituencies will be held Oct. 23.

Butkevicius, 57, wants more increases in the minimum wage to help lift average monthly salaries to 1,100 euros ($1,230) by 2020 from 772 euros now. He'll also skew taxation from labor to property. Homeland Union, popular among urban voters, pledges to boost average salaries to 1,250 euros. Having secured investment from the likes of Barclays when last in power, it promises 147,000 new jobs, a higher cutoff for untaxed earnings and the return of 80,000 emigrants to the nation of 3 million.

"You don't need to pack your suitcases and leave," Homeland Union head Gabrielius Landsbergis said Thursday evening during a televised debate. "You have to come back because there will be jobs."

The balance of power will probably lie with the Peasants & Greens, who advocate less red tape and a more technocratic government. While they haven't specified a preferred coalition partner, they may be a better fit for Homeland Union, according to Ramunas Vilpisauskas, director of the Institute for International Relations and Political Science at Vilnius University.

Whatever the result, a budget stance that's reigned the deficit back within EU limits is unlikely to change with the big parties shunning major additional expenditure beyond meeting NATO-mandated defense outlays by 2020 in the wake of Russia's Crimea annexation. Economic growth, while curbed by EU sanctions against Russia that Grybauskaite strongly backs, is set to top 3 percent in 2017 and 2018. Government bond yields are near all-time lows.

Fitch Ratings said last month in a report that it's "not expecting a new government to diverge from the current economic, fiscal and social-policy agenda, regardless of the outcome of upcoming parliamentary elections."

---

Ott Ummelas and Milda Seputyte contributed.</s>VILNIUS, Lithuania — Lithuanians were voting Sunday in the first round of a parliamentary election, with the governing Social Democrats facing challenges from conservatives and an agrarian party.

Lithuania, the biggest of the three Baltic countries, has struggled to stem emigration since regaining independence in the early 1990s and joining the European Union in 2004.

Both the Social Democrats, which have led a coalition government since 2012, and opposition parties have promised to raise living standards in the country of 2.9 million.

Many Lithuanians complain that prices have gone up since the country introduced the euro, the EU's common currency, in 2015, while salaries have not. The country was hit hard by the global economic meltdown and is just emerging from a recession.

Pre-election polls showed the Social Democrats in the lead, ahead of the agrarian Peasant and Green Party and the conservative Homeland Union-Christian Democrats in the race for parliament's 141 seats.

Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius leads the Social Democrats while the conservatives are led by Gabrielius Landsbergis, who at 34 is trying to become Europe's youngest prime minister. He is the grandson of Vytautas Landsbergis, Lithuania's first head of state after the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.

Lithuania remains highly suspicious of Russia and tense relations with Moscow are expected to continue regardless of the outcome of the election.

Polling stations will close at 8 p.m. (1700 GMT). A second round will be held on Oct. 23 in constituencies where no candidate wins a majority of votes.

No party is likely to get more than 20 support so coalition-building talks are sure to follow the election.
Voters in Lithuania vote to elect representatives for the 141-seat parliament.