TALLINN, Estonia (AP) – Estonia’s two largest political parties reached an agreement on Sunday to form a new government headed by a woman prime minister for the first time in Baltic history, replacing the previous cabinet that collapsed in a corruption scandal earlier this month.
Opposition party councils, center-right reform party and government. The center-left party voted in favor of joining a cabinet led by Reformed Prime Minister-designate and President Kaja Kallas.
Both parties will have seven ministerial portfolios in addition to Kallas’ term as prime minister in the 15-member government, which would garner a majority in the 101-seat Riigikogu Parliament.
A joint statement said that the Reform Party and the Center Party “will form a government that will continue to effectively resolve the COVID-19 crisis, keep Estonia future-oriented and develop all areas and regions of our country.”
Earlier this month, President Kersti Kaljulaid, who is expected to appoint Kallas’ cabinet in the next few days, said addressing the deteriorating situation of the Estonian coronavirus and the economic turmoil caused by the pandemic should be an immediate priority for the new government. .
Kaljulaid, Estonia’s first female head of state since 2016, tasked Kallas to form the government as her pro-business and pro-entrepreneurship reform party emerged as the winner of the March 2019 Estonian general election.
Pending parliamentary approval, Kallas, 43, will become the first woman head of government in the history of the small 1.3 million Baltic nation to regain independence amid the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
A lawyer and former Member of the European Parliament, she is the daughter of Siim Kallas, one of the founders of the Reform Party, a former prime minister and former EU commissioner.
Kaja Kallas took over the reins at the Reform Party in 2018 as her first women’s chair. Her first cabinet will also see women in other key positions, as Keit Pentus-Rosimannus of the Reform takes over as finance minister and diplomat Eva-Maria Liimets becomes foreign minister.
Government formation marks the second such attempt for Kallas in less than two years as it failed to bring in a Reform Party-led government after the 2019 elections. This paved the way for the Archival Center Party and its leader, Juri Ratas, to form a three-party coalition without the Reform Party.
Ratas and his cabinet resigned on January 13 over a scandal involving a key official of his central party suspected of accepting a private donation to the party in exchange for a political favor for real estate development in the capital’s port district, Tallinn.
Ratas’ government, which took office in April 2019, was shaken from the start, as the coalition included populist EKRE, the nation’s third-largest party participating in a nationalist, anti-immigration and anti-EU agenda.
The strong rhetoric of EKRE leaders, Mart Helme and his son Martin Helme, created several embarrassing situations for Ratas’ government with public statements that were seen as insulting Estonia’s international allies and tarnishing the country’s image and bringing the government to a standstill. of collapse at least twice.
Kallas immediately ruled out the inclusion of EKRE in his cabinet, citing considerable differences in values. The Reform Party defines itself on its website as “the leader of the liberal worldview in Estonia”.
The damage done by EKRE to Estonia’s right-wing image is seen as so serious that Kallas earlier acknowledged to the Estonian press that his cabinet would embark on a diplomatic mission to regain confidence in the country’s allies and secure Estonia’s new political course.
The Prime Minister of Estonia since November 2016, Ratas will not be part of the new cabinet. Local media reported earlier that he could become parliamentary speaker in March.
Estonia has been a member of the European Union and NATO since 2004.
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This story has been corrected to show that there are 15 members of the Cabinet, not 14.