Narutowicz was elected with the support of the parties representing the Jewish, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Lithuanian and German minorities.

It is a bilingual district, with about 75% of the population belonging to the Lithuanian minority in Poland.

Sejny is also a notable centre of cultural life of the Lithuanian minority in Poland.

During the next two centuries, the Lithuanian minority, faced with the dominant Polish culture in the region, was subject to Polonization.

There are several buildings dedicated to Lithuanian minority, including the Lithuanian House and an ethnographic museum in Sejny.

In 2006 the Lithuanian minority received 1.344.912 zlotys ( 450,000$) from Polish government in 2006 (22 out of 27 requests were approved).

This conflict resulted in enmity within local communities and the mutual harsh treatment of the Polish and Lithuanian ethnic minorities living in both countries.

Until 1945, the region was overwhelmingly Lutheran, with small pockets of Catholics among the Polish and Lithuanian minority.

Until World War II there was a Lithuanian minority in surrounding villages.

Following Piłsudski's death in 1935, the Lithuanian minority in Poland again became an object of Polonisation policies with greater intensity.