"There's disagreement on this within our coalition," Kallas acknowledged, asked by Põhjarannik (link in Estonian) whether it would be possible to drum up the 81 votes needed in the 101-seat Riigikogu to pass a constitutional amendment that would strip Russian and Belarusian citizens of the right to vote in the next local government elections.

She explained that within the Reform-Eesti 200-SDE coalition, it is the Social Democrats who are against the proposed disenfranchisement, although she believes Russian and Belarusian citizens' right to vote should be suspended at least so long as the war in Ukraine continues and "people who can vote for Putin and are also liable to mobilization in Russia are able to influence local political life here."

Another attempt will be made to discuss the issue within the coalition, the Estonian head of government said, also referring to the possibility that together with the opposition Isamaa and Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE), "counting on my fingers, so to speak, the calculation indicates that we'd have the votes."

Even so, she admitted that she doesn't want to break up the coalition either, as "if you're going to make [a decision] using votes outside the coalition, then generally speaking, that won't have a great impact on the health of the coalition."

ERR has previously reported that the coalition initially sought to figure out a way to suspend the voting rights in question without a constitutional amendment, as that would allow for this to be done in time for next year's local government elections. The Ministry of Justice is now conducting a new analysis, however, focused on how to accomplish this with a constitutional amendment.

As of last May, nearly 69,000 Russian and Belarusian citizens living in Estonia would be impacted by the plan to suspend voting rights in local government elections.

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