Prime Minister Kadja Kallas’ Reform Party is set to win Estonia’s vote

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) – Voters in Estonia He cast his ballots on Sunday in a parliamentary election with preliminary results pointing to Prime Minister Kaja Kalas’ center-right Reform Party.. One of Europe’s most vocal supporters of Ukraine was on his way to a landslide victory.

Klass has faced a challenge from the far-right populist party EKRE, which seeks to reduce the Baltic state’s exposure to the Ukraine crisis and blames the current government for high inflation in Estonia.

Nine political parties from all fielded candidates for membership in Estonia’s 101-seat Parliament, or Riigikogu. More than 900,000 people were eligible to vote in the general election, and nearly half of them voted in advance.

With around 90% of the votes counted, the Reform Party was in a strong lead with 31.9% of the vote, followed by EKRE with 15.2% and the Center Party, traditionally favored by Estonia’s large ethnic Russian minority, with 14.5%.

Preliminary results indicated that six parties crossed the 5% threshold of support needed to be in parliament, including newcomer Eesti 200, a centrist liberal party.

By the time polling stations closed at 8pm (1800GMT), the overall turnout was 63.7%, according to preliminary information, a rate on par with the 2019 election. Preliminary election results are expected as early as Monday.

National security in the aftermath of Russia’s neighboring Ukraine invasion and social and economic issues, particularly the rising cost of living, were major themes of the campaign.

Klass, 45, became prime minister in 2021 and has emerged as one of Europe’s most vocal supporters of Ukraine. During the war, which lasted a year. It is seeking a second term, while bolstering its position with its international appeals for sanctions against Moscow.

A Baltic country with a population of 1.3 million that borders Russia to the east, Estonia broke away from the Soviet Union in 1991 and took a clear western path, joining NATO and the European Union.

Five parties were represented in the outgoing parliament. Klaas’ party led the current coalition government with the small conservative Fatherland Party and the Social Democrats.

The centre-right Reform Party, a major player in Estonian politics since the mid-1990s, held the post of Prime Minister continuously during 2005-2016 and regained it in 2021.

Opinion polls indicated that Kalas’s party was likely to win the most votes in Sunday’s elections. EKRE leader Martin Helm, the prime minister’s main rival, faults Callas for the country’s 18.6% inflation rate, one of the highest in the European Union, and accuses it of undermining Estonia’s defenses by giving weapons to Ukraine.

We have never questioned Ukraine’s support. “We have never questioned Estonia’s membership in NATO,” Helme said in an interview with the Associated Press. “This is just crazy talk. But we have severely criticized the government for not assessing the risks for Estonia and for Estonian security and defense.”

“We basically ceded all our heavy weapons to Ukraine, and the replacement is coming in two or three years. Basically, this is an invitation to aggression.

Outspoken and polarizing EKRE entered the mainstream of Estonian politics in the 2019 elections, when it emerged as the third largest party with around 18% of the vote. The Eurosceptics Party was co-founded by Martin Helm’s father, Mart Helm, and was part of a Center Party-led government during 2019-21.

Kallas says it is in her country’s interest to help Kiev. An all-out invasion of Ukraine raised fears in Tallinn that a Russian victory might encourage Moscow to turn its attention to other states it controlled in Soviet times, including the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania..

It says Estonia’s defenses remain strong because the United States and other NATO allies have supplied Ukraine and Estonia with first-class weapons such as the HIMARS missile system.

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Kostya Maninkov in Tallinn, Estonia, contributed to this report.