WORLD
Estonian government wins election
Baku, March 7 (AZERTAC). Estonia`s governing centre-right coalition is in a position to serve a second term, after parliamentary elections gave the two governing parties a total of 49.1% of the popular vote and a solid majority, according to the European Voice.
The Reform Party of Prime Minister Andrus Ansip emerged top of the poll, with 28.6% and 33 seats, while Pro Patria/Res Publica Union garnered 20.5% of the vote and 23 seats, an increase of four.
These figures, which are preliminary, would give the two parties 56 seats in the 101-seat assembly, the Riigikogu.
In the last Riigikogu, the parties had 49 seats.
The change in the distribution of seats is largely due to the failure of two small opposition parties to retain their seats in parliament: the Greens and populist agrarian People`s Union. Their departure made 12 seats available for the remaining four parliamentary parties.
The 54-year-old Ansip, who is already the longest-serving prime minister in Estonian history, is now in a very strong position to extend his six-year premiership. The re-establishment of the same coalition would be the first time that Estonia has had an unchanged government since it gained independence in 1991.
In the unlikely event that Pro Patria/Res Publica Union fails to reach an agreement with the Reform Party, one possible alternative partner is the Social Democrat party, which came fourth with 17.1% and gained nine seats, taking its total to 19. The Social Democrats were part of Ansip`s coalition in the previous parliament, from April 2007 until May 2009. However, the coalition collapsed when Ansip fired three Social Democrat ministers and there is little appetite on either side for a renewed partnership. Together, the Reform Party and the Social Democrats would have a two-seat majority.