Correction added on April 16, 2015 at 20:33 CET: The Social Democrats lost indeed 4 seats compared with 2011, but now control only 15 (not 16) seats in parliament. Together with the Reform Party as well as the Pro Patria and Res Publica Union, they form Estonia’s new coalition government, controlling 59 seats in the 101-member parliament.
Article added on March 2, 2015 at 14:17 CET: On March 1, 2015 the ruling coalition in Estonia lost its majority in the parliamentary election. The Estonian voter turnout reached 64.2%.
The pro-NATO and pro-EU Reform Party of Estonia’s Prime Minister Taavi Rõivas (*1979!) finished first with 27.7% (2011: 28.6%) of the vote and 30 seats in the 101-member parliament. Nevertheless, the Reform Party lost 3 seats compared with 2011. Its junior coalition partner, the Social Democrats, finished third with 15.2% of the vote (2011: 17.1%) and 16 seats. The party lost 4 seats compared with 2011.
Together, the Reform Party and the Social Democrats lost their absolute majority. They now only control 46 seats in the 101-member parliament. They will need an additional coalition partner if they want to continue to govern Estonia together.
The oppositional, center-left, pro-Russian Center Party finished second with 24.8% of the vote (2011: 23.3%) and 27 seats, one seat more than in 2011. That comes as no surprise since some 25% of Estonia’s 1.3 million people are ethnic Russians. The Center Party went as far as to sign a cooperation treaty with Putin‘s United Russia Party as far back as in 2004. As with the Mayor of Latvia’s capital Riga, the Mayor of Estonia’s capital Tallinn and Center Party leader, Edgar Savisaar (*1950), is a member of the country’s major pro-Russian party. Because of their demographic weight, pro-Russian parties cannot completely be ignored. Anti-Russian measures, especially in Latvia, can easily be manipulated by Putin to stir up tensions.
The conservative Pro Patria and Res Publica Union got punished at the ballot box. The party only managed to win 13.7% of the vote compared with 20.5% in 2011. It lost 9 seats and now controls only 14 seats in parliament. Pro Patria and Res Publica is a former coalition partner of the Reform Party. It seems to have lost voter attraction once it ended up in the oppositional camp. The 2015-electoral result may be the chance for them to join the government again.
Two new parties have entered parliament. The Free Party, founded in 2014, is a free-market, center-right party. It won 8.7% of the vote and 8 seats. It is a possible coalition partner for the Reform Party. The Conservative People’s Party of Estonia was founded it 2012. It is a populist, national-conservative, euro-skeptical, anti-immigration party of the political right. The Conservative People’s Party of Estonia sees itself engaged in a struggle for the “survival” of the Estonian ethnicity. It is in favor of the creation of a national public bank as well as of the establishment of an interest-free currency. It is unlikely to end up in a coalition government. In the 2015-parliamentary election, the party managed to win 8.1% of the vote and 7 seats.
After Putin’s annexation of the Crimea in early 2014, national security became a major issue in the former Soviet Republic. In 2014, the alleged kidnapping of an Estonian, anti-smuggling security agent by Russia made headlines and increased tensions between the two neighboring countries. In the past year, as a measure of intimidation, Russian military aircraft have regularly violated the Estonia airspace. In addition, in 2007, Russia had fought a cyber and economic warfare against Estonia. It had little effect because the economically liberal country had already massively reduced its economic ties with Russia at the time.
In addition, taxes and wages were other hot topics in the 2015 Estonian parliamentary election. The Free Party was successful with its free-market rhetoric. Not only the Estonia Free Party, but also Prime Minister Taavi Roivas’ Reform Party are strong supporters of the free market. Estonia has adopted a flat income tax and does not live on credit, last but not least thanks to the counseling by free-marketeers such as Razeen Sally. The historically low wages as well as the austerity measures imposed in Estonia following the 2008 financial crises were topics that mobilized left-wing and populist parties, including the pro-Russian, left-leaning Center Party and the new, populist, euroskeptical Conservative People’s Party of Estonia.
Estonia regained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, joined both NATO and the EU in 2004 and became a member of the eurozone in 2011. Estonia is an economically solid country. It’s public debt is only 9.6% of GDP, the unemployment rate is 7.4%.
Books about Estonia from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.fr, Amazon.de.
Article added on March 2, 2015 at 14:17 CET. Correction added on April 16, 2015 at 20:33 CET. Added to our newly designed WordPress pages on March 6, 2023 with a new photo of Tallinn (panoramic view of Tallinn by Diego Delso. License CC-BY-SA. Via Wikipedia.)
