Analysis of the elections in Estonia: why the liberals won, the far right lost and other important conclusions

All the votes have been counted, the winners have been announced and the dust is settling in Estonia’s first election since the end of the COVID pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The composition of the next parliament, the Riigikogu, looks familiar but also different: in the previous elections in 2019, five parties were represented, and now six parties have overcome the 5% barrier and returned to the seats.

Now talks are starting to form the next government, and this is where Prime Minister Kaja Kallas hopes history doesn’t repeat itself: In 2019, her Reform Party won a majority of seats in parliament, but it was beaten by right-wing parties that formed a coalition. of your own.

So what have we learned from the campaign and the election? Here are our main findings:

1. A strong new friend for Kaia Kallas and her Reform Party

Current Prime Minister Kaya Callas had a strong night: its centre-right Reform Party won three new seats, while opponents to the right on the political spectrum suffered losses. Estonian public broadcaster ERR called the win “convincing” as Reforma increased its lead over the far-right party EKRE to 15 seats.

The victory, according to Kallas, “also shows that Estonians overwhelmingly value liberal values, security based on the EU and NATO, and strong support for Ukraine.”

The new liberal bloc now emerging in Estonian politics could theoretically mean that the Reform would only need the support of one other party to form a majority government, but Kaja Kallas spoke during the election campaign about the need to create stable and strong alliances with other parties, so she, likely to consider two other parties with similar values ​​to form its coalition: Estonia200 and the Social Democrats.

2. Big breakthrough for the Estonia200 batch

In the last general election in 2019, the Estonia200 party narrowly missed the 5% threshold to get MPs back into parliament. In regional elections, they sharpened their message by targeting seats in urban areas, in particular where they felt their strength and main support, and have now translated this into a nationwide success with 14 seats in the Riigikogu – and a likely seat in government.

So why did this liberal centre-right party resonate with voters? Party co-founder Cristina Kallas (not related to Kaia Kallas) told Euronews that her party has been successful by reaching out to representatives from a wide range of political circles.

“In this election, people were looking for an option for a new, liberal force,” Kallas says.

“In Tartu, where I campaigned, populism was feared not only by young liberal progressive voters, but also by quite old people who, perhaps, were not value-liberal in our understanding, but they also did not want populism,” she said. explains.

“Estonia200 got more liberal voters to vote and voted for a new party,” says Kallas.

3. The sides on the right lost support

“This year it seems more important who gets no votes than who gets them,” one Estonian voter told Euronews on election day. strongly, while parties with more traditional views (Party of Center and Isamaa) or with more polarizing politics (EKRE) suffered.

“The Reform Party and EKRE presented themselves as the main opponents in the elections, calling on supporters of other parties to vote for them to make sure that the other has no chance of becoming the prime minister’s party,” explains Merili Arjakasresearcher at International Defense and Security Center in Tallinn.

“Although the nominal loss of two seats for EKRE is insignificant, they expected the Center Party to take the position of a strong second party by 25 seats. It didn’t happen,” she told Euronews.

In addition, the fact that the Social Democrats and Estonia200 did better than in recent public opinion polls also added salt to the right’s wounds.

“That’s why it’s widely believed that the right-wing nationalists lost the election,” Arjakas says.

The Center Party’s vote share is down more than 36,000 votes since last election, which was likely lost due to a number of factors, including a popular figure who was expelled from the party last year and ran as an independent; but the security situation, the war in Ukraine, a sense of neglect or alienation among Russian-speaking voters who traditionally vote for the Center Party, and a generally lower level of political engagement.

4. Internet voting has become more popular and reliable than ever.

For the first time in the Estonian electoral cycle, more than 50% of people voted online. This is only possible thanks to the wide range of services available to Estonians on the Internet, the investments in system security that the authorities have invested in, and the high level of public confidence in the integrity of Internet voting.

The fly in the ointment after the vote count was that the far-right party EKRE now reportedly wants to challenge the e-ballots in court.

Christy Raikthe deputy director of the International Center for Defense and Security in Tallinn calls it a “Trumpist” move.

“EKRE questions the reliability of the voting procedure and wants to challenge the electronic voting in court. This is a dangerous game aimed at undermining people’s trust in institutions,” Raik says.

“The real reason is that EKRE gets relatively few electronic votes.”

5. What happened to the turnout of Russian-speaking voters?

Over the last year or so, Estonia’s Russian-speaking voters have found themselves little politically. Although they have traditionally been on the side of the Center Party, they felt frustrated when it came to continuing education in Russian alongside the Estonian language education system.

EKRE tried to win them over and use the arrival of Ukrainian refugees as wedges: but EKRE also loudly called for the removal of Soviet-era monuments, which in turn may have alienated some Russian-speaking voters.

“Looking at the districts, the turnout was significantly lower than the national average in Ida-Virumaa and slightly lower in the Kesklinna, Lasnamäe and Pirita districts of Tallinn, where there are many Russian speakers in the country,” explains Merili Arjakas from ICDS.

While the method of calculating turnout has changed in this year’s elections, the turnout in these Russian-speaking constituencies has always been below average.