Estonia: Political Developments and Data in 2021

Abstract

There was one government change and two elections in Estonia in 2021. In January, the Ratas II government, led by the Centre Party and also including the populist Estonian Conservative People's Party and the conservative Fatherland, was replaced by the K. Kallas I government, a coalition of the liberal Reform Party and the Centre Party. Indirect presidential elections were held at the end of August and Parliament elected Alar Karis as the new President of the Republic. Local elections took place in October and did not produce any major surprises. Regular day‐to‐day politics and campaigning were overshadowed by waves of COVID‐19 in spring and autumn, and the onset of an energy crisis at the end of the year.

Estonia: Political Developments and Data in 2022

“…The first government led by the head of the Reform Party, Kaja Kallas, was formed with the Centre Party in the beginning of 2021, when the previous Prime Minister Jüri Ratas (KE) decided to end his coalition with EKRE and Fatherland in the wake of a corruption scandal in the capital Tallinn (see Mölder 2022). This was an uneasy alliance, as the two parties had traditionally been major rivals, and not long ago negative emotions between the supporters of those parties had been running rather hot (Reiljan 2019).…”

“…Changes in political parties are shown in Table 4. The year 2022 saw two leadership changes in the more important parties in the system and the emergence of a new party, the Right-Wingers (see also Mölder 2022), which was determined to contest the 2023 parliamentary elections. Estonia 200, to the surprise of many, changed leadership in October 2022.…”