First modification:
The Estonian Reform Party (centre-right), from which Prime Minister Kaja Kallas hails, won parliamentary elections on Sunday. It will have to form a coalition with one or more other parties to obtain a majority in Parliament.
The party obtained 31.2% of the votes on Sunday, March 5, ahead of the far-right party EKRE (16.1%), according to the almost final count of the results of these legislative elections in Estonia. Kaja Kallas’s party improves its score compared to previous elections. But it will have to, as during the legislature that is ending, form a coalition with one or more parties in Parliament.
“It’s much better than we expected,” Kallas told reporters, ruling out allying with the far-right EKRE party, which came second with 16.1% of the vote while some polls gave it as high as 25%. of voting intentions. “We have ruled out any coalition with EKRE and I stand by my words as I did in 2019,” he said.
One of the EKRE leaders, Mart Helme, accused the Reform Party on election night of having “stolen” the electoral victory. “We didn’t do anything wrong. We did everything right and honestly, unlike those who robbed us of our deserved victory,” he said, noting that EKRE led the race in the countdown of the ballots but that the situation was reversed when they were counted. electronic votes.
During the election campaign, EKRE argued against further arms deliveries to kyiv and said Estonia should not harm its relations with Moscow. He also campaigned for the “protection” of Estonian workers against the influx of Ukrainian refugees and other immigrants.
At the end of the elections on Sunday, four other parties will be present in the new Estonian Parliament. The Center Party (centre-left) obtained 15.3% of the votes, Eesti 200 (liberal) 13.3%, the Social Democratic Party 9.3% and Isamaa (conservative) 8.2%, after a provisional count of 100% of the votes. The participation was 63.5%, according to the Electoral Commission.
The commission has yet to conduct a new count tonight and another on Tuesday. If the results are confirmed, the Reformist Party will surpass its result of four years ago (28.9%) and will obtain 37 seats, three more than in the previous legislature.
Increase military spending
Popular with businessmen and young professionals, the Reform Party has promised to increase military spending to at least 3% of GDP and cut corporate taxes. It also promotes a law that approves civil unions between people of the same sex.
“The reformists can form a government with all these parties except EKRE, because EKRE’s position has now become so weak that it can be easily ignored,” Rein Toomla of the Johan Skytte Institute for Political Studies told AFP.
Estonia, a country of 1.3 million people that borders Russia, has a unicameral parliament with 101 seats. A member of the European Union and NATO, the Baltic country led international calls last year for increased military aid to Ukraine in the face of Russian invasion.
Estonian military aid to Ukraine currently amounts to more than 1% of its GDP, the largest contribution of any country relative to the size of its economy. “I think with such a strong mandate, that won’t change,” Kallas said Sunday.
These elections took place while the Estonian economy is going through a difficult situation, with one of the highest inflation rates in the European Union, at 18.6% per year in 2022.
“We must make important reforms regarding the ecological transition, for example, but we must also invest in our security,” Kallas said on Sunday. “Our aggressive neighbor has not disappeared and will not disappear. So we have to work with that,” he added, referring to Russia.
The Estonian president has 14 days to nominate a candidate for the post of prime minister, who will also have 14 days to present his new government to parliament for approval.
*Article adapted from its original in French
with AFP
