Estonia General Election - March 1, 2015

[politicus]

The first parliamentary election in Europe in 2015 will be in little Estonia by the Baltic Sea with its huge Russian minority and post-Soviet tradition of very liberal economics. An election True Leftists and nostalgic Social Democrats should stay away from following, since there aren't really any genuinely leftist options.

After Prime Minister Andrus Ansip (2005-2014) left for a Vice Presidency in the European Commission the ruling liberal Estonian Reform Party threw out their conservative coalition partner in March and replaced them with the Social Democrats. Ansip's replacement is the youngest Prime Minister in Europe Taavi Rõivas (35), who is in charge of a majority coalition, which among other things has legalized same-sex unions (first ex Soviet country to do so) and has a solid lead in the polls.

The Estonians will elect 101 representatives to the Riigikogu (Diet) using PR in 12 multi-member constituencies with a 5% national threshold.

There are four parties represented in parliament.

Estonian Reform Party is an economically liberal and (mostly) socal liberal party. Supported by the winners in Estonian society; the party's voters are younger, richer, better educated and more urban than all other parties'. Has been part of every government since 1999 and the biggest party since 2007.

Pro Patria and Res Publica Union is the cumbersome name of a merger between two conservative parties. Should have been called Eesti Eest (For Estonia), but the pun was too lame and they stuck with the provisional name. It is SoCon, paying lip service to Christian values, economically right wing and nationalist, but moderate in all aspects. Hardly any Russians vote for it. In government until March.

Estonian Centre Party claims to be Social Liberal, but is populist, "law and order" and economically centrist by European standards (though that makes them the most "leftist" of the four big parties). Led by an Estonian, but the choice of 75% of Russians.

Social Democratic Party isn't really all that Social Democratic. They used to be the Moderate People's Party (as in moderate liberals), but changed their name in 2004 to attract centre-left voters. Equally fond of social market economy a la Adenauer and Anthony Giddens & the Third Way. The most socially liberal of the four big parties

Others:

Estonian Greens is an environmentalist and conservationist party above the threshold in a few polls. Like all Estonian parties it is not really left wing, but fiscally conservative and socially liberal with focus on Green Tech innovation and entrepreneurship. Supports direct democracy.

Conservative People's Party of Estonia is ironically the most leftist on economics (still fairly centrist, this is Estonia..) with establishment of a public bank and support of cooperative banking on their agenda. Otherwise nationalist, anti-immigration, eurosceptic, fiercely anti-Russian and socially conservative. Supports direct democracy. It was established in 2012 as a merger of the agrarian populist and centrist People's Union of Estonia (once a big party) with a right wing pressure group called the Estonian Patriotic Movement. Polling around 2-3%

[politicus]

The latest TNS Emori poll from November to give you an idea of relative strength (last election result in brackets):

Reform Party 29    (28.6)
Social Democrats 22 (17.1)   
------------------
Pro Patria/Res Publica 18 (20.5)   
Centre Party 22 (23.3)   
Greens 4 (3.8 )
CPP 2 (2.1#)   
Others 3

# numbers for the agrarian populist and centrist People's Union of Estonia, which merged with a right wing pressure group to become CPP.

[Famous Mortimer]

I think you're a little hard on the Social Democrats. I don't think they're any more fake socialists than most other PES parties. They've been members of the SI since they were founded and they've always tried to claim a historical link to pre-Soviet social democrats. They are committed fake socialists.

[Hash]

Kesk's major problem is that while it has an unsurprisingly rock-solid core electorate, it is widely loathed by the rest of voters, because the party boss/mayor of Tallinn Edgar Savisaar is widely seen as an autocratic corrupt populist with questionable ties to Russia and ER. With Savisaar's hold on the party getting gradually more strenuous and his alleged links with Russian sketchiness obviously controversial, we shouldn't expect his lot to be welcomed into any government soon.

[politicus]

I think you're a little hard on the Social Democrats. I don't think they're any more fake socialists than most other PES parties. They've been members of the SI since they were founded and they've always tried to claim a historical link to pre-Soviet social democrats. They are committed fake socialists.

The current chairman Sven Mikser is an ex Centre Party member, who left that party because he thought they were too left wing and SD has always attracted social liberal intellectuals.

They also have a rather unusual tendency to absorb or merge with centre-right parties.

SD merged with the agrarian Estonian Rural Centre Party in 1996 to form the Moderates and in 1999 they merged with the People's Party (a 1998 fusion of agrarian populist Peasants' Party and right wing People's Party of Republicans and Conservatives) as the Moderate People's Party before they switched back to being SD after their 2003 thumbing. Recently they merged in 2012 with the small Russian Party of Estonia (heirs to the old Russian National Union), some pretty right wing types to team up with for a centre-left party. All in all, not your typical SDs.

[politicus]

Kesk's major problem is that while it has an unsurprisingly rock-solid core electorate, it is widely loathed by the rest of voters, because the party boss/mayor of Tallinn Edgar Savisaar is widely seen as an autocratic corrupt populist with questionable ties to Russia and ER. With Savisaar's hold on the party getting gradually more strenuous and his alleged links with Russian sketchiness obviously controversial, we shouldn't expect his lot to be welcomed into any government soon.

Which blocks the only real alternative to the current coalition, which would be a Centre Party and Social Democrats "leftist" coalition. Even without Savisaar such a combo would be unlikely because of Russians being more SoCon than Estonians and the Centre Party's insistence on stuff like zero tolerance on drugs with recriminalization of possesion of small amounts for personal use etc., increased police powers and other tough law and order measures. Civil rights are central to the Social Democrats and the two parties would have difficulty finding common ground on those issues.

The other three alternative combos are blocked as well:

With the Social Liberal wing of the Reform Party in charge SoCon Pro Patria is not attractive for them, Since the Social Democrats allow them to pursue pretty right wing economic policies its not worth the trade off to let the conservatives back in - after nine years with "lets take it easy and focus on the economy" Ansip the libertarian types are hungry for more.

Pro Patria/Centre is a no go. Opposites on economics and the status of Russian and relationship to Russia.

Reform/Centre: Opposites on economics and Centre (while not genuine SoCons) not on board with large parts of Reforms SoLib agenda. Worst option for Reform that has the most options to start with.

Pro Patria/Social Democrats: Opposites on the SoCon/SoLib scale and far apart on economics. A non-starter.

So even setting aside the fact that both governing parties seem to be content with the current coalition all the alternative possibilities are unlikely.

The Reform Party is one of the most radical parties in Europe to be the center option in their party system, but they actually are. Leaving Pro Patria isolated on the right wing and the Social Democrats without a real alternative on the left, while Centre have isolated themselves.

[politicus]

TNS Emor is the only company that polls Estonia regularly. They do one every month and the one for December show Reform gaining 3% and Pro Patria and Greens dropping 2% each. They have a nice graph of all their polls going back nearly a decade:

http://www.erakonnad.info/reiting.html

Also a political chronology (in Estonian):

http://www.erakonnad.info/kronoloogia.html

[politicus]

The Estonian Free Party is centered on Andres Herkel a well known conservative public debater and intellectual in Estonia. It is an anti-corruption/fresh air populist party wanting to "open up the state to the people", but otherwise conservative.

Five main goals:

* decrease waste in state spending and increase efficiency
* increase the tax-free minimum (to benefit low income groups)
* decrease political corruption and state funding of political parties
* open politics to more people (incl. lowering the threshold to 3%)
* broad-based changes in state, administration and tax system

http://news.err.ee/v/politics/f999d8c4-9f09-4975-8132-f61026c6c3c5

[politicus]

There are 11 registered parties in Estonia (+ one bankrupt and one under liquidation).

Membership:

Estonian Center Party 14,277
Estonian Reform Party 12,854
Union of Pro Patria and Res Publica (IRL) 9,788
Conservative People's Party of Estonia 7,661 #
Social Democratic Party 6,230
Estonian Independence Party 2,138 #
Estonian United Left Party 1,986 #
Estonian Greens 1,138 #
Freedom Party – Farmers' Union 967 #
Estonian Free Party 642 #
Party of People's Unity 500+ #

# not in parliament

[Philip Weisler]

Er, the Rõivas government is the FIRST ever where SDE (or its predecessors) would govern without Pro Patria (or its predecessors) also being in the government. When Mart Laar's ''Triple coalition'' collapsed in December 2001, it was essentially due to infighting with the Reform Party on one side and the Pro Patria + Moderates (->SDE) on the other. These two formerly had very cordial relations. That's because, as you pointed out above, various conservative splinter groups from Pro Patria and elsewhere had fused with the Moderates.

Now, SDE has been moving in the libertarian direction on the libertarian - authoritarian axis but they are still not complete opposites. As for economy, SDE has governed exclusively in centre-right/economically liberal coalitions.

I also question your assessment that the EKRE is among the established parties the most leftist one economically. What would be your sources?

Pro Patria/Social Democrats: Opposites on the SoCon/SoLib scale and far apart on economics. A non-starter.

So even setting aside the fact that both governing parties seem to be content with the current coalition all the alternative possibilities are unlikely.

[Philip Weisler]

The SDE has never ever governed in a centrist or centre-left government while it was numerically possible. In early 2003, while there were fears among the rightist pundits that the populist centre-left parties Centre Party and People's Union would get a majority in the parliament, a number of intellectuals published an ''Appeal for the Right-Wing Parties to Unite''. The authors of this appeal counted among the ''right-wing parties'' Pro Patria, Reform Party, Res Publica and People's Party Moderates (that renamed itself SDE a year later).

I think you're a little hard on the Social Democrats. I don't think they're any more fake socialists than most other PES parties. They've been members of the SI since they were founded and they've always tried to claim a historical link to pre-Soviet social democrats. They are committed fake socialists.

[politicus]

The SDE has never ever governed in a centrist or centre-left government while it was numerically possible. In early 2003, while there were fears among the rightist pundits that the populist centre-left parties Centre Party and People's Union would get a majority in the parliament, a number of intellectuals published an ''Appeal for the Right-Wing Parties to Unite''. The authors of this appeal counted among the ''right-wing parties'' Pro Patria, Reform Party, Res Publica and People's Party Moderates (that renamed itself SDE a year later).

I think you're a little hard on the Social Democrats. I don't think they're any more fake socialists than most other PES parties. They've been members of the SI since they were founded and they've always tried to claim a historical link to pre-Soviet social democrats. They are committed fake socialists.

To be fair the 1996-2003 period in which they merged with two centre-right parties is not really that relevant for an evaluation of the current party. The party relaunched itself as a centre-left party after their 2003 defeat and moved leftwards. As you can see from my previous posts I do not consider them a genuine SD party, but they are clearly to the left of where they were back then.

It is the Moderate People's Party, not People's Party Moderates.

[Philip Weisler]

@Charlotte

You are a funny kind of a lass, aren't you? On top of your usual self-righteous attitude you are now lecturing a native speaker of Estonian on how to properly translate Estonian political party names.

It is the Moderate People's Party, not People's Party Moderates.

''Rahvaerakond'' - People's Party. ''Mõõdukad'' - Moderates. ''Rahvaerakond Mõõdukad'' - People's Party Moderates. Moderate People's Party would be ''Mõõdukas Rahvaerakond'' in Estonian. See the difference?

Now of course the real name did sound clumsy, but it did so both in Estonian as well as in English. While they were trying to rebrand themselves around the late 2003 some commentators humorously suggested that, well, why not just take all the proposed names and rename themselves e.g. ''Social Democratic Labour Party Moderates''.

[Diouf]

http://news.err.ee/v/opinion/4af16526-9529-4025-81d4-dc7c316515a1

An extensive article about the proposals from each of the four big parties regarding wages, taxation etc.

[Helsinkian]

I saw a couple of election posters for the Estonian Social Democrats here in Helsinki. There are of course a lot of Estonian citizens living here. Still the first time I'm seeing posters for a political party of another country.

[Philip Weisler]

The most important thing is actually, whether any of the newer small parties pass the 5% threshold or not. It's quite surprsising but Vabaerakond (Free Party) and the nationalist Conservative People's Party have been polling well recently.

The government will doubtlessly be formed by (any combination of) the 3 neoliberal cartel parties Reform Party/IRL/Soc Dems.

[politicus]

TNS Emori poll for February:

Reform Party 23%
Social Democrats 20% 
------------------
Pro Patria/Res Publica 14 %
Centre Party 22%
CPP 9%
Estonian Free Party 9%

Greens 2%
Others 1%

Solid lead for the opposition.

[politicus]

E-votes (around 25% of votes) to be published in an hour (8PM Estonian time). The final result expected around midnight.

Updates:

http://news.err.ee/v/politics/e6116ebf-fa52-4e5b-b254-956b3deea083

[ilikeverin]

And results:

Reform Party 28%, 30 seats (-3)
Center Party 25%, 27 seats (+1)
Social Democrats 15%, 15 seats (-4)
Pro Patria/Res Publica 14%, 14 seats (-9)
Free Party 9%, 8 seats (+8)
Conservative People's Party 8%, 7 seats (+7)

Since the Reform and Center parties have ruled out a coalition, there will have to be a three-party coalition in charge.

http://rk2015.vvk.ee/voting-results.html

[politicus]

Turnout was 63,7%, which is respectable for Estonia.


Most natural coalition:

Reform, SD, Free Party


Others in order of probability:

1. Reform, SD, Pro Patria (Grand Anti-Russian)

2. Reform, Pro Patria, Free Party (Right wing with Economic Conservative tilt)

3. Reform, Pro Patria, Conservative (Right wing with Social Conservatve tilt)

.....

E-voting made a difference

E-vote results:

Reform Party: 37.5 percent

IRL: 17.2

Social Democrats: 16.9

Free Party: 12.0

Center Party: 7.7

Conservative People's Party: 6.9 percent  

[Philip Weisler]

I doubt if EKRE would be included in any coalition. They are far too conservative/nationalist/rightist. You could compare them with LAOS in Greece.

Turnout was 63,7%, which is respectable for Estonia.


Most natural coalition:

Reform, SD, Free Party


Others in order of probability:

1. Reform, SD, Pro Patria (Grand Anti-Russian)

2. Reform, Pro Patria, Free Party (Right wing with Economic Conservative tilt)

3. Reform, Pro Patria, Conservative (Right wing with Social Conservatve tilt)

.....

E-voting made a difference

E-vote results:

Reform Party: 37.5 percent

IRL: 17.2

Social Democrats: 16.9

Free Party: 12.0

Center Party: 7.7

Conservative People's Party: 6.9 percent  

[ag]

It would be interesting to see if there is any Russian/Ukrainian split emerging among the Estonia's "Russians". I know of, at least, one Ukrainian nationalist who ran for the Free Party this time.

[politicus]

I doubt if EKRE would be included in any coalition. They are far too conservative/nationalist/rightist. You could compare them with LAOS in Greece.

Which is why they are the fourth most likely three party coalition = least likely option not including the Center Party.

You can not really be too conservative/right wing in Estonia - them being weird and anti-establishment is a bigger liability + being populist on economic policy.

[politicus]

It would be interesting to see if there is any Russian/Ukrainian split emerging among the Estonia's "Russians". I know of, at least, one Ukrainian nationalist who ran for the Free Party this time.

I would not expect Ukrainians to vote Centre Party nearly as massively as Russians. Centre got 92,1% of Russians last time (which was a huge increase) and is likely to repeat that feat. Reform and SD (and Greens - but that is marginal) were the other parties getting Slavic votes. Pro Patria being de facto mono-ethnic. Free Party populism/anti-establishment appeal might actually attract some Russians as well despite what one might think.

Official population statistic has 1,7% Ukrainians and 25,2% Russians (down from 3,1% and 30,3% respectively in 1989 - so much higher exodus for Ukrainians), do you consider those flawed since you say "Russians"?

[Philip Weisler]

For people in Brussels or elsewhere, the EKRE would be much more toxic than the Centre Party. Here the first idiot of the day: J. Madison from EKRE arguing in his blog that despite concentration camps, gas chambers and what not, Hitler managed to bring the country out of the ''sh**thole'' it was in. (Link in Estonian - http://poliitika.postimees.ee/3109729/riigikogu-noorim-liige-olid-koonduslaagrid-sunnitoolaagrid-harrastati-gaasikambritega-mange-kuid-samas-selline-nn-range-kord-toi-saksamaa-sugavalt-p-sest-valja; in Russian - http://rus.postimees.ee/3110365/taavi-ryjvas-prokommentiroval-skandalnoe-vyskazyvanie-jaaka-madisona-o-nacizme#comments)

Of course, Helmes themselves are no Nazis but I find it disappointing that they do not distance themselves from the person concerned.