Estonian elections, March 6
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Hash
Hashemite
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« on: March 01, 2011, 04:10:35 PM »

Elections in Estonia on March 6. Estonia is most famous for its internet voting.

Unemployment is 10%ish, but Estonia has like the best growth rate of the EU-27 and a small deficit. The incumbent Reform-Pro Patria and Res Publica Union government led by Andrus Ansip is likely to be reelected. For reference, the parties be:

Reform: incumbent party, with 27.8% and 31 seats in 2007. Classical liberal, it likes the flat tax and wants to further lower the flat tax rate soon. Though it has raised the VAT in 2009 when Estonia was in recession.

Centre: opposition with 26.1% and 29 seats in 2007. Led by mayor of Tallinn and former PM Edgar Savisaar. While a member of the ELDR like Reform, it is more left-wing and supports a progressive income tax and opposed the circumstances in which the Euro was adopted this year. Savisaar has the reputation of being a corrupt political boss in an administration rife with cronyism and nepotism. What's more, Centre has close ties to Putin's United Russia and a new scandal came out last year according to which Savisaar had asked the Russians to finance his party (which they did). Centre has strong support from the Russian minority (those who can vote at least, which isn't a lot of people). Because of its controversial links to Russia (which isn't a very popular country in Estonia) and Savisaar being a crook, nobody wants to cooperate with a party led by Savisaar though if he's dumped someday then Centre will become more acceptable.

Pro-Patria Union-Res Publica (IRL): main right-wing party with 17.9% and 19 seats. Mixes traditional neoliberalism (balanced budget, grow our way out of the recession, low taxes) with populism like retirement pension for mothers and widows.

Social Democrats: former coalition member with 10.6% and 10 seats. Rather right-wing social democrats, their leader is a former Centre member. Wants to increase family allowance, but would also like to govern with Reform.

People's Union of Estonia (ERL): 7.1% and 6 seats. Agrarian party, will die out this year and that's probably why they're the only ones who still tolerate Centre.

Greenies: 7.1% and 6 seats. They seem to be the only decent party, but sadly they're below the 5% threshold now Sad

One poll says:
REF 28%
KESK 25%
IRL 21%
SDE 16%
Green 4%
ERL 2%

Another says:
REF 21%
IRL 14%
SDE 14%
KESK 13%
ERL 4%
Greens 1%

Reform has taken a big hit just now, with IRL and SDE benefiting most. The Centre is doing sh**tty, and it would be nice to see them place third or fourth.
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freek
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« Reply #1 on: March 01, 2011, 04:23:00 PM »


Another says:
REF 21%
IRL 14%
SDE 14%
KESK 13%
ERL 4%
Greens 1%
And the other 33%? Undecided, or 'won't vote'?

KESK = Centre?
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Insula Dei
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« Reply #2 on: March 01, 2011, 04:38:38 PM »

Estonia looks like it has some pretty horrible politics.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #3 on: March 02, 2011, 05:05:42 AM »

So basically Estonia has no left-wing party ?
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big bad fab
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« Reply #4 on: March 02, 2011, 05:49:52 AM »

And what are the possible coalitions ?
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DL
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« Reply #5 on: March 06, 2011, 05:10:54 PM »

Since something like 40% of the population of Estonia is Russian, is there a party that specificaly defends the rights of the Russian minority?
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« Reply #6 on: March 06, 2011, 05:30:38 PM »

Since something like 40% of the population of Estonia is Russian, is there a party that specificaly defends the rights of the Russian minority?

1. Most Russians don't have citizenship.
2. Surprisingly, ethnic parties don't seem to have legitimacy even with the few Russians who vote. This is probably because Centre is basically a Russian ethnic party with a wider base.
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ag
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« Reply #7 on: March 06, 2011, 09:55:53 PM »

Well, judging by the names, of the 26 Center Party MPs, may be, 9 or 10 are "russophones" (includes all sort of the post-Soviets: Russians, Ukrainians, Jews, or Tartars). Interestingly enough, there seems to be more of them at the top of the list. Only 1 out of 33 Reform party MPs seems to be "russophone", as, may be are two MP's from Pro-Patria/Res Publica and 2 Social Democrats (in the latter case, one of the two is almost certainly only a Russian on his maternal side, but an Estonian on the Paternal side - or else, he is from the weirdish Estonian-Orthodox ethnic minority: Russian last name, Estonian first name). This is, almost certainly an overestimate: I interpreted every dubious name as "russophone". The rest are overwhelmingly Estonian, though there are may be a couple of Germans and/or Letts hiding in the "Estonian" part of the list - some of the Germans would be prety estonianized, anyway.
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ag
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« Reply #8 on: March 06, 2011, 10:06:15 PM »

BTW, there was a Russian list, it got almost no votes though.

Pity the Greenies didn't make it: at the top of their list was Alexei Lotman, who, I believe, is the son of Yuri Lotman, one of the most important Russian intellectuals (Tartu University based) from the past century. The rest of that list was reliably Estonian.
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ag
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« Reply #9 on: March 06, 2011, 10:23:15 PM »

I am not sure it is still true that MOST Russians have no citizenship. A lot of them either left (not necessarily for Russia, but also for the rest of the EU) or got naturalized. As of the 2000 census 170 thousand residents of Estonia were without any citizenship, but the 2010 official estimate is only about 102 thousand. About the same number of people, probably, have Russian citizenship (in fact, perhaps a bit less: the estimate is around 95 thousand). If we take the current "russophone" population of Estonia to be a bit over 400 thousand (in all these numbers I am cheating and following Russian wikipedia, so they might be off - I don't have time to properly search now), it would seem that a little bit over a half the "Russians" still left in Estonia are Estonian citizens.  Non-citizens in Estonia vote in municipal elections (they are, probably, still a majority in some towns), but not in the national elections. With the number of naturalizations now down to smthg like 2000 a year, it will take forever for the problem to disappear, but it is not at all as bad as it was right after independence.
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ag
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« Reply #10 on: March 06, 2011, 10:26:21 PM »

Since something like 40% of the population of Estonia is Russian, is there a party that specificaly defends the rights of the Russian minority?

A bit less than 40% by now. A lot of them have moved out. It would, probably, be about 400 thousand "russophones" out of 1.3 mln. Of these, may be, half are citizens.
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Leftbehind
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« Reply #11 on: March 07, 2011, 02:33:02 AM »
« Edited: March 07, 2011, 03:19:53 AM by Leftbehind »

Estonia looks like it has some pretty horrible politics.
I can only agree...

BTW, there was a Russian list, it got almost no votes though.
Was that what happened to the Left-turn-United Left? I noticed in the image posted of the results the socialist left vote was nowhere to be seen, and then read on wiki that the Left Party had coalesced with a the Russiophile leftist parties. Seems to have been disastrous for them, if so. But then again, at 0.1% in a PR system, you're already in dire trouble of disappearing anyway.

Seems the biggest losers were the Agrarians and the Greens to the benefit of SDP. But as I say, I think the Estonian people are the biggest losers with these results - it's like Britain finally managing to obtain PR to then be left with New Labour as our leftist voice in a political system full of conservatives and orange bookers. Horrific.
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ag
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« Reply #12 on: March 07, 2011, 09:56:38 AM »

It pretty accurately reflects Estonian political preferences. Anything to the left of New Labor would be viewed as a foreign occupation force in that country.
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Leftbehind
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« Reply #13 on: March 07, 2011, 11:41:43 AM »

haha, I see.
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