The new Prime Minister of Estonia Kaja Kallas. Photo: Estonian Presidency of the EU in 2017. flickr.com
On January 13th 2021, Estonian politics began to tilt on its axis. Estonian Prime Minister Juri Ratas announced his resignation following the Prosecutor’s Office announcement that five members linked to his Centre Party were involved in possible corruption and influence peddling. The syncretic Centre Party, which has been featured prominently in Estonian politics since the 1990s and governed the country for the last five years, was toppled. What caused the downfall of the Centre Party’s second government? Who might benefit from the resulting electoral reverberations? The answer lies in the Centre Party’s post-Soviet history.
Kaja Kallas becomes Estonia’s first female prime minister
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Kaja Kallas, the leader of the Reform Party, has become Estonia’s first female prime minister; Estonia would thus currently become the only country in the world where both the president and the prime minister are women.
The Reform Party, led by Kallas, won the 2019 parliamentary election in Estonia with 34 MPs in the country’s 101-seat parliament, Riigikogu. However, the second most successful party in the election, the Centre Party – led by Jüri Ratas – went ahead and formed the government, instead.
In April 2019, with 25 MPs in the parliament, Ratas’s party formed the coalition with the conservative Isamaa Party (12 MPs) and the far-right and populist Estonian Conservative People’s Party, also known as EKRE (19 MPs) – the decision of which received a widespread criticism in Estonia and abroad. Since then, Ratas’s government experienced many scandals, mainly due to the outspoken EK
Ministers of Estonia s outgoing government are to receive a benefit equaling six months pay, totaling €33,975.
A government minister s monthly salary is €5,662 and upon leaving office, a benefit of €33,975 will be paid out to each of them, spokespeople for the government said.
The benefit will only be paid to the ministers who will neither take up a seat in the parliament nor start work in the incoming government.
The ministers who are joining the parliament will not receive the benefit; instead, they will earn a monthly salary of a parliament member amounting to €4,330 with their reimbursement of expenses totaling up to one-third of the monthly remuneration.
Outgoing prime minister Jüri Ratas (Center) said at his last press briefing as the head of the current government on Thursday that he is proud both of his first and second governments.