Reform Party Boosted Spending to €1.9 Million Ahead of Elections
The ruling Reform Party spent 1.9 million euros on its local election campaign and a PR campaign earlier in the year, more than double what it had spent ahead of the previous elections four years ago.
Spending big did not seem to create positive results for Reform in the October elections, as the party won only 13.7 percent of the votes nationwide, 3 percentage points fewer than in 2009.
The much smaller Conservative People's Party said it spent 20,500 euros on its campaign, although it only collected 8,337 votes, Postimees reported on Tuesday.
When quizzed on the topic at the end of August, the Reform Party said it would spend over 800,000 euros on the campaign.
The three other parties in Parliament have yet to disclose their pre-election spending levels, but in August the Center Party said it planned to spend around 600,000 euros, the Social Democrats cited a slightly smaller sum, while IRL said it had one million euros at its disposal.