On 6 July Dekanozov’s government announced that on 14 July there would be elections for a new parliament, a so-called People's Seimas. The Lithuanian Communist Party announced the formation of the Union of the Toiling People of Lithuania, which offered a slate of candidates, including some ten non-members of the Communist Party, with as many people as there were seats in the new parliament up for election. On 11 and 12 July, the Soviet authorities reduced the possible points of opposition by arresting leading figures of the old regime and deporting some of them to the interior of the Soviet Union, although Lithuania was still formally an independent state.