Sunday, March 04, 2007

Ruling parties easily win in Estonia

Estonia's ruling coalition of the free-market Reform and agrarian/centrist Center parties has easily won the parliamentary election, taking 60 of 101 seats (their smaller partner, the People's Union, secured 6 seats, down from 13). Center had previously been the largest party in the coalition, but their place will be taken by Reform, the party of PM Andrus Ansip, which surged from 19 to 31 seats. The new Green Party entered parliament with 6 seats and the Social Democrats saw a not-entirely-expected surge (if the polls were to be believed) to 10.6% of the vote and 10 seats.

Again, this will change little, but likely Center and Reform will now govern alone, and Ansip seems guaranteed to return to the prime minister's office.

The quick breakdown:
Reform (free-market liberal) / 27.8%, 31
Center (centrist/liberal/agrarian) / 26.1%, 29
Res Publica-Pro Patria (conservative) / 17.9%, 19
Social Democrats / 10.6%, 10
Estonian Greens / 7.1%, 6
People's Union (conservative/nationalist) / 7.1%, 6

Results are available in English from the Estonian Electoral Commission, with regional breakdown in Estonian.

Update: More detailed thought on the electoral system (also in my first post) from Dr. Shugart at Fruits and Votes, and, via F&V, an interesting blogpost by Dr. Josep Colomer on the participation of electoral-systems expert Dr. Rein Taagepera in Estonian politics.