Estonia’s new prime minister has vowed to restore the Baltic nation’s reputation after two tumultuous years, in which a far-right party was part of the country’s government.
“We will rebuild our relations with our allies, neighbors and try to restore our name as a good country to invest in,” Kaja Kallas told Reuters in Tallinn on Tuesday, after taking the oath of office.
Kallas became the country’s first female prime minister since independence from Estonia in 1991. The Reform Party, which is leading, won the most votes in the 2019 general election, but was unable to form a government, as the rival Center Party instead formed the far-right EKRE and other right-wing parties to form a disputed coalition with the center’s jury as prime minister. The party paid attention.
That coalition was always fragile, and was frequently shaken by the far-right rhetoric used by members of the EKRE government. In 2019, AKR MP Rubenben Kalip told the Guardian that the party’s agenda was to fight “fundamental change”, “the LGBT agenda” and “left global ideological rights”.
In December of that year, Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid apologized to Finland, then Ecker’s leader, Interior Minister Mart Helm, mocked Finland’s newly elected Prime Minister Sanna Marin as the ‘sales girl’.
Last year, Kaljulaid called on the country’s Security Council to discuss remarks made by Helm calling then-US presidential candidate Joe Biden “corrupt.” He said the remarks could jeopardize Estonia’s integration.
In the end, the Ratas government withdrew not from the rhetoric of EKRE but from the scandal of corruption. He resigned early in January, and a new alliance was formed between the center and the reform parties, with seven members in each cabinet and a Kallas prime minister. The new cabinet will be in office for two years before new elections are held in the spring of 2023.
Callas is the daughter of former lawyer and MEP, Sim Callas, who founded the Reform Party and was prime minister from 2002-2003. He said the gender balance in the new cabinet is an important factor, with a number of women, including finance and foreign ministers, being appointed to key positions.
Estonia is now one of the few countries where both the head of state and the government are women, although President Kaljulaid’s five-year term will end this year, and he has not yet announced whether he will take a second term.
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