Some thoughts on local election results in Estonia

Yesterday local government elections took place all over Estonia. Most of the local governments are miniscule, and there are a lot of them; Tallinn as a capital is, however, huge and has one third of Estonia’s population. That is why most commentators and analysts focus on Tallinn mostly. Tallinn has ca 50% of ethnic Estonians and about the same number of non-ethnic Estonians (including stateless persons and foreign citizens who are also allowed to vote). Tallinn has been embroiled in corruption scandals, the Mayor Edgar Savisaar has been accused of using public funds to advance his election campaign, etc. Savisaar’s Centre Party has the majority of seats in the city council.

In my opinion one needs three things to be elected: visibility, credibility and no perception of desperation or lack of cool factor. This obviously relates to the target group you want to attract (since credibility and coolness are different things to different people).

The election strategies were quite divergent:

1. The Centre Party relied on their base of ethnic Russians, so they touted their achievements (free public transport, social benefits) and used Tallinn’s coffers to promote them. In a typical day during the run-up to the elections there would be three or four openings of different buildings or roads. The most egregious of them was the opening of the Ülemiste crossing for which a giant plastic doll was constructed at a considerable expense. This meant that it defined the elections, both in a good and bad light, and thus ensured constant media attention. This allowed them to have constant visibility, their previous reign had shown their credibility as to their governing ability and their electorate perceived them mostly as a rebel underdog trying to fight for their rights and interests. Thus very good results was ensured, despite, maybe even because of their constant vilification in the national media.

2. Conservative IRL had the most energetic strategy which was built on attacking corruption in Tallinn and aimed to represent the ethnic Estonians in Tallinn. The campaign was highly visible thanks to a hot-tempered candidate Eerik-Niiles Kross with a past in intelligence agencies and national defence who seemingly did not care much about traffic rules, paying taxes on time or having been accused of piracy by Russia. The attacks on Savisaar, however, seemed to have no other substance than some sort of calculation of the cost of corruption, which was never clear. They attacked the way Savisaar governs, indirectly Russians. Thus IRL stoked national tensions and ensured no significant Russian votes for anyone, but Savisaar. Their aggressive guerilla campaign provided visibility and brought them up as the main foe of the Centre Party. He was cool and credible mostly because the media refused to scrutinise him in any significant way.

3. The Reform Party, which is the main government party, had lost a lot of steam. Their strategy was to run a positive, soft campaign on the theme of “Proud of Estonia”. They probably considered Tallinn to be a lost cause, which is why their message targeted mostly places outside of Tallinn, where they were in power. They were also embroiled in a party financing scandal recently and thus thought a good idea to lay low for a while. This of course meant that their popularity plummeted not only in Tallinn, but in Estonia as well. The soft, positive campaign was contrasted with a desperate attempts to get some sort of traction in Tallinn, which included a fake-FEMEN stunt and the idea to plant more than hundred thousand trees to Lasnamäe. There were no credible new ideas and they were simply overshadowed by Centre Party vs IRL fight. The cool factor, which Reformierakond had always had, was lost due to desperation and governing fatigue (they have been in power in the country since 2005). It remains to be seen whether they will be able to turn around their slow stagnation with fresh ideas.

4. Social Democrats were with great potential, but, as usual, blew their chances. Their strategy was even less visible than Reform Party’s and consisted of the idea of winning Tallinn first and national parliament second. Now, if they had received some sort of traction in Tallinn, that would have been great, but now it seems that they have lost the wind from their sails due to the meager results in Tallinn. Social Democrats had enjoyed a high level of support in between of election, their strategy being doing nothing to piss anyone off. That does not work during elections. So instead of fresh ideas, they offer nothing. The Social Democrats have also always had a credibility problem and their reputation is not particularly cool either.

5. Electoral unions: I do not believe in them as a principle (though I do like many of the individual persons). I do not think long-term impact and democratic governance is possible by ad hoc groups of people who are united only in their anti-establishment and anti-political party views. It reminds me of the Simpsons episode when Mensa club started to govern Springfield and how that turned into a chaos quite quickly. Like it or not, representative democracy is based on political parties and rather than trying to destroy them or bully them, citizen activists should try to help them to overcome their issues and become stronger, more democratic and more responsive. There is ample room in all parties for change and bright people, wasting resources on ad hoc electoral unions is not a sustainable way forward.

It seems that Estonian politics have become rather entrenched and stable. No big changes happen unless the ethnic divide between Estonians and Russians is overcome. Then and only then we can say that our representative system is also sufficiently democratic. Parties have to work harder and become much more inclusive, representative, smarter and professional in what they do, otherwise the elections are going to be a farce-like experience with no winners, and only losers.