Estonians yesterday voted in an election marked by nerves in the vulnerable NATO member over a militarily resurgent Russia and a popular pro-Kremlin party, but opinion polls suggest the center-left coalition is poised to return to power.
Moscow’s annexation of Crimea last year and its meddling in eastern Ukraine has galvanized the EU, including this eurozone member of 1.3 million people, a quarter of whom are ethnic Russian.
Military maneuvers by Moscow on Estonia’s border days ahead of the vote are further stoking deep concerns in Europe that the Kremlin could attempt to destabilize countries that were in its orbit during the Soviet era.
Estonian Prime Minister Taavi Roivas is tipped to hold onto power.
Analysts expect his centrist Estonian Reform Party to renew its coalition with the Social Democrats, buttressed in the 101-seat parliament by a smaller conservative party.
A TNS Emor opinion poll released on Saturday showed Reform leading with a forecast 26 percent of the vote, ahead of the opposition Center Party with 22 percent and the Social Democrats with 19 percent.
The conservative Pro Patria and Res Publica Union commanded 16 percent, with six smaller parties also running.
Earlier opinion polls had showed Center, backed mainly by ethnic Russians, narrowly ahead. However, its lack of coalition partners would make it unlikely to govern.
Former world chess champion and staunch Kremlin critic Garry Kasparov took to Facebook last week to express his “personal concern” over Center’s popularity.
Center leader and Tallinn mayor Edgar Savisaar lost the trust of many Estonians last year when he pledged his support for Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
“The current security situation will stay with us for a long period of time,” Roivas has said about Europe’s worst standoff with Russia since the Cold War.
“This is not just bad weather, this is climate change,” he said.
He is part of a chorus of Baltic leaders demanding more NATO troops, hardware and extra air patrols to counter Moscow’s heightened military overtures.
NATO plans to boost defenses on its eastern flank with a spearhead force of 5,000 troops and command centers in six formerly communist members, including Estonia.
“I am rather worried about the potential threat from Russia,” said Katrin, a teacher from the capital Tallinn who declined to provide a surname, adding that she supported a pro-European party.
However, on Estonia’s eastern border with Russia, voters are more sanguine about the threat posed by Moscow.
“How can Russia pose a threat to NATO? Are they all nuts? NATO has 28 countries,” Yevgenia, an ethnic Russian retiree who declined to provide her surname, told reporters.
“We were promised living standards like in Finland, but each year it gets worse and more people have to pick over landfills to live,” she said of the city of Narva, among the poorest in the EU, where 90 percent of the 60,000 residents are ethnic-Russian.
Bread-and-butter issues, including proposals to triple the minimum wage to 1,000 euros (US$1,119) per month and lower social security premiums, are also hot election topics.
Long a paragon of fiscal responsibility in the EU, which it joined in 2004, Estonia scored 1.8 percent GDP growth last year, with a 2.5 percent increase expected this year.
A record 33 percent of voters used a mouse click to cast ballots, thanks to cybersavvy Estonia’s “e-Voting” system in early polling between Feb. 19 and Wednesday last week.
Polling stations were open from 9am to 8pm yesterday.
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