The election was the culmination of a three-year reversal in what Estonians were used to seeing: Reform had been in charge since 2007 but found itself in opposition for just about the first time in history, after the ejection of former chairman Edgar Savisaar* made Centre much more palatable to coalition partners Isamaa and the Social Democrats. The worrying part was, the significant gain of the populist far-right Estonian Conservative People’s Party (EKRE), which ended up with a whopping 19 seats. Out of the 101 seats in the Riigikogu, the pro-business, pro-European Reform Party got 34 the incumbent coalition-leading, leftish-populist Centre Party got 26 the moderate nationalist Pro Patria (Isamaa) got 12 and the Social Democrats got 10. The Estonian parliamentary election resulted in what initially looked like a rather worrying but non-apocalyptic result. If the Centre-EKRE-Isamaa coalition comes true in Estonia, the far-right EKRE will hold prime minister Jüri Ratas by the balls and dictate the coalition’s policy, Andrei Tuch writes.
