ISSN: 2560-1601 Vol. 16, No. 1 (EE) March 2019 Estonia political briefing: The 2019 Riigikogu elections: done, but not dusted E-MAP Foundation MTÜ 1052 Budapest Petőfi Sándor utca 11. +36 1 5858 690 Kiadó: Kína-KKE Intézet Nonprofit Kft. [email protected] Szerkesztésért felelős személy: Chen Xin Kiadásért felelős személy: Huang Ping china-cee.eu 2017/01 The 2019 Riigikogu elections: done, but not dusted The long-awaited 2019 parliamentary elections in Estonia are history. However, this undisputed fact represents only the ultimate finale of a single process. The elections were held to form the country’s next Government, and from now, it is a ‘whole-new kettle of fish’. The old promises and predictions are becoming blurry, being ruthlessly moderated by each and every party’s desire to be an integral part of the governmental coalition, for as long as it could be possible during the upcoming 4-year term. In a number of our previous briefings on Estonian politics, some arithmetic was done in regards of possible configurations, which the prospective cabinet could have. It was clearly underscored that absolutely all of those options could be considered relevant if no Estonian political party would be inclining to enter a serious discussion with the Conservative People’s Party of Estonia (Eesti Konservatiivne Rahvaerakond or EKRE). In the pre-elections period, the latter political establishment, while exposing a noticeably xenophobic political rhetoric, had been growing from strength to strength in all polls. Has the situation changed after 3 March? Have those politicians, who were publically denouncing a possibility to communicate with EKRE on a perspective to form a coalition with them, changed their mind since then? The e-vote as a good indicator of the winner Since Estonia is a global champion in the sphere of e-governance, there is no big surprise that a significant number of Estonian citizens prefer casting their votes electronically, using their e-signature. In principle, the Internet-based voting (I-voting) was possible to be done around the clock, from the 10th until the 4th day before the elections day1. In 2015, the Estonian I-voters’ share among participating voters represented 30.5%2, an astonishing result that looked like a political ‘science fiction’ for other countries. In 2019, the voters’ turnout was high enough to be positively acknowledged (565,045 out of 887,420 or 63.7%), but the number of people who voted electronically broke all possible records – 247,232 citizens did cast their votes online, and it made the I-voters’ segment among participating voters being 43.75%3. Most probably, the next Riigikogu elections in 2023 will see the majority of the country’s voters to 1 ‘Internet voting in Estonia’ in Valimised. Available from [https://www.valimised.ee/en/internet-voting/internet- voting-estonia]. 2 ‘Statistics about Internet Voting in Estonia’ in Valimised. Available from [https://www.valimised.ee/en/archive/statistics-about-internet-voting-estonia]. 3 ‘Total of Estonia’ in Valimised. Available from [https://rk2019.valimised.ee/en/voting-result/voting-result- main.html]. 1 be ‘casting’ their ‘ballots’ electronically – it is going be a revolutionary change in democratic practices. However, until that occurs, the outcome of the 2019 elections was no less revolutionary – by the end of business in the country-wide polling stations, the State Electoral Committee immediately confirmed that the I-voting was won by the opposition – the Estonian Reform Party collected 40% of the total votes in the segment, followed by the EKRE that managed to receive 13.5%4. With necessity and keeping in mind the already known total number of the Estonian citizens who had voted, it became possible to argue (even before the rest of the votes would be counted) that the Estonian Reform Party was to win the elections with a significant margin. The political party, which was the leading force in five consecutive Estonian Governments from April 2005 until November 2016, was getting ready to come out from the oppositional shadow to champion the formation of the country’s new cabinet. An early moment to celebrate it was. The aggregated polling data vs. the voting results In order to follow and, with a certain luck, understand the outcome of the 2019 Riigikogu elections, it would be logical to compare the actual results with the aggregated polling data recorded for the two month that were preceeding the elections. Even having had a hurried look at the numbers presented by PollofPolls.eu5 (aggregation trend line Kalman Smooth), it is possible to argue that the official record on the final digits6 is, in fact, not too far away from the aggregated polling data for January and February (see Table 1 for more details). 4 ‘Reform Party overwhelmingly wins the e-vote’ in ERR. 3 March 2019. Available from [https://news.err.ee/916336/reform-party-overwhelmingly-wins-e-vote]. 5 ‘All polls for Estonia’ in Pollof•Polls.eu. Available from [https://pollofpolls.eu/EE]. 6 ‘Voting and election result’ in Valimised. Available from [https://rk2019.valimised.ee/en/election- result/election-result.html]. 2 Table 1: Aggregated polling data (January-February 2019) and the elections results (March 2019), Estonia7 Date of recording/aggregated % vs. the actual result Political party 3 January 2019 3 February 2019 3 March 2019 The Estonian Centre Party 26% 27% 23.1% The Estonian Reform Party 24% 26% 28.9% The Conservative People’s Party 19% 17% 17.8% of Estonia The Social Democratic Party 11% 10% 9.8% Pro Patria 8% 8% 11.4% Estonia 200 6% 5% 4.4% The Estonian Free Party 1% 1% 1.2% The Estonian Greens 2% 3% 1.8% Source: Pollof•Polls.eu and Valimised.ee The above shown figures confirmed the fact that only the following political parties are on their way to be entering the next Riigikogu: the already mentioned Estonian Reform Party and EKRE will be having a company of the Estonian Centre Party, the Social Democratic Party, and Pro Patria. The other political establishments, including the Estonian Free Party that scored big time in 2015, did not manage to pass a nationwide threshold of 5% and, therefore, will be outside of the Estonian Parliament for the next four years at least. The Estonia 200, a prospective newcomer to the Riigikogu, dramatically failed to deliver in the final stage of the campaign, losing a good half of what the polling data had been predicting for them at the beginning. The factor that the Estonia 200 dropped out from the list of prospective coalitional partners for either the Estonian Reform Party or the Estonian Centre Party (or for both of them) represents one of the main explanations of what happened next. 7 ‘All polls for Estonia’. 3 On 3 March, closer to midnight, the Republic of Estonia learned the main set of digits, which were brought by the elections – out of the total 101, how many seats each party will be possessing in the next Riigikogu (see Table 2) Table 2: Number of seats per party based on the 2019 Riigikogu elections results Political party Number of seats The Estonian Reform Party 34 The Estonian Centre Party 26 EKRE 19 Pro Patria 12 The Social Democratic Party 10 Source: Valimised.ee It became painfully obvious for the ruling coalition of the Estonian Centre Party, the Social Democratic Party and Pro Patria that, together, they will not be scoring the number of seats required for enjoying the parliamentary majority. With an immediate effect, this kind of revelation made the whole process to be featured by a very high degree of uncertainty – this is when a situational political ‘friend’ can easily become a situational political ‘enemy’. On such an occasion, the contrary can effectively work in exactly the same fashion. EKRE that collected 99,671 votes was to increase the party’s presence at the Riigikogu by 271%, adding 12 more seats to their parliamentary faction. Nobody was going to be a ‘friend’ of ERKE before? What a banality! These sentiments remained in the almost forgotten past, and, without engaging any algebra, the explicit list of probable configurations of the prospective Estonian Government appeared before the electorate in a trivial way (see Table 3 for details). 4 Table 3: Probable configurations of the prospective Estonian Government Configurations Combined number of seats at the Riigikogu 1. The Estonian Reform Party, The Social Democratic Party, 56 Pro Patria 2. The Estonian Reform Party, 60 The Estonian Centre Party 3. The Estonian Reform Party, The Estonian Centre Party, 70 The Social Democratic Party 4. The Estonian Reform Party, The Estonian Centre Party, 82 The Social Democratic Party, Pro Patria 5. The Estonian Reform Party, EKRE, 65 Pro Patria 6. The Estonian Centre Party, The Social Democratic Party, 67 EKRE, Pro Patria 7. The Estonian Centre Party, EKRE, 57 Pro Patria Source: Constructed by E-MAP Foundation MTÜ and based on Valimised.ee Having lost one parliamentary seat as compared to the 2015 results, the Estonian Centre Party found themselves in a position with a super-limited ability to perform effective manoeuvring. The exact coalition they were leading from November 2016 is not going to be ‘repeated’, and it pushed the party’s leader and the current Prime Minister Jüri Ratas to make some important statements on the elections night. As reported, when he was asked on whether or not the Estonian Centre Party would be ready enter a governmental coalition as a junior partner, Jüri Ratas immediately gave his “Of course”, while adding that “I will work to see the Centre Party in the best possible positions in the next coalition”8.