Estonian deal leads to historic moment
Nation to get its first female prime minister after two parties form a new government.
TALLINN, Estonia — Estonia’s two biggest political parties clinched a deal Sunday to form a new government to be led by a female prime minister for the first time in the Baltic country’s history, replacing the previous Cabinet that collapsed in a corruption scandal this month.
The party councils of the opposition center-right Reform Party and the ruling left-leaning Center Party voted in favor of joining a Cabinet headed by Reform’s chairwoman and Prime Minister-designate Kaja Kallas.
Both parties are set to have seven ministerial portfolios in addition to Kallas’ post of prime minister in the 15-member government, which would muster a majority at the 101-seat Riigikogu, or Parliament.
A joint statement said the Reform Party and the Center Party “will form a government that will continue to effectively resolve the COVID-19 crisis, keep Estonia forward-looking and develop all areas and regions of our country.”
This month, President Kersti Kaljulaid, who is expected to appoint Kallas’ Cabinet in the next few days, said tackling Estonia’s worsening coronavirus crisis and subsequent economic turmoil should be priorities for the new government.
Kaljulaid, Estonia’s first female head of state since 2016, tasked Kallas to form the government as her probusiness Reform Party emerged as the winner of Estonia’s March 2019 general election.
Pending approval from lawmakers, Kallas, 43, will become the first female head of government in the history of the small Baltic nation of 1.3 million, which regained its independence amid the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
A lawyer and former European Parliament lawmaker, Kallas took the reins of the Reform Party in 2018 as its first female chair. Her first Cabinet will see women in other key positions as Reform’s Keit Pentus-Rosimannus takes over the finance minister post and diplomat Eva-Maria Liimets becomes the foreign minister.
The government formation marks the second such attempt for Kallas in less than two years as she failed to bring about a Reform Party-led government after the 2019 election. That paved the way for the archrival Center Party and its leader, Juri Ratas, to form a threeparty coalition without the Reform Party.
Ratas and his Cabinet resigned Jan. 13 over a scandal involving a key party official suspected of accepting a private donation for the party in exchange for a political favor on a real estate development.
Estonia’s prime minister since November 2016, Ratas won’t be part of the new Cabinet.