Estonia votes as far-right surge challenges mainstream
TALLINN: Estonians began voting yesterday in a general election with the centre-left coalition duelling its traditional liberal rivals and a surging farright party buoyed by a backlash from mostly rural voters in the Baltic eurozone state.
The lacklustre campaign has focused on bread and butter issues like taxation and public spending, as well as tensions over Russian language education for Estonia’s sizeable Russian minority and the rural-urban divide.
Nearly 40 percent of the 880,690 eligible voters have used e-voting in advanced polling, with officials confident the online system can withstand any attempted meddling.
A poll collating e-voters and those intent on using paper ballots on Sunday suggests a tight race.
Prime Minister Juri Ratas’s centrist Centre party scored 24.5 per cent support, narrowly trailing the liberal Reform party led by former MEP Kaja Kallas with 26.6 pe cent, according to pollster Kantar Emor.
Promising to slash income and excise taxes and pushing antiimmigration rhetoric, the farright EKRE stands to more than double its support to 17.3 per cent, but could struggle to find coalition partners.
With five to six parties expected to enter the 101-seat parliament, the splintered outcome will make for tricky coalition building.
Traditional rivals, Centre and Reform have alternated in government and even governed together over the nearly three decades since Estonia broke free from the crumbling Soviet Union.
Both strongly support Estonia’s EU and Nato membership and have favoured austerity to keep spending in check, giving the country the eurozone’s lowest debt-to-GDP ratio. — AFP