Ratas: I felt the government would continue as a two-way alliance
Opposition forces consider the Reform Party's candidate for prime minister Kristen Michal to be an experienced politician who will do fine as premier. Opposition politicians also feel it would have been easier for Reform to move on with just one coalition partner.
Former Prime Minister Jüri Ratas (Isamaa) said that teamwork may become a stepping stone for the coalition.
"Whether they'll have trust or not. We know that for the past 10 months, the Estonian government has been in standby mode, waiting to see whether a particular someone (Prime Minister Kaja Kallas – ed.) will land a top post [in the EU], which she did – congratulations. But whether this government will be capable of taking major economic decisions – the coping of the Estonian people depends on how well the apparatus works," Ratas noted.
The board of the Reform Party decided on Saturday to launch talks with the Social Democratic Party (SDE) and Eesti 200 for a new coalition for when Kaja Kallas leaves to become the EU high representative for foreign and security policy.
"In politics, nothing is settled until everything is settled. I felt that they would rather move on as a two-way alliance as SDE and Reform have the votes," Ratas said.
EKRE leader Martin Helme said that the same forces will very likely continue.
"Leaving the government would offer no improvement for Eesti 200. Rather, things would be even worse. The Social Democrats have always played this game where they make big words on stage only to fall in line and give in to the Reform Party behind the scenes. It is likely that the latter will secure a series of favorable conditions for themselves to last until the local elections and will still be in a position to reshuffle the coalition if they so wish after the locals."
Center Party head Mihhail Kõlvart described Michal as an experienced politician at both the local and nationwide levels.
"What's positive is that he will look to domestic politics, which we saw little of from the outgoing prime minister over the last five year," Kõlvart remarked.
Kõlvart also considers it likely that the makeup of the coalition will remain largely the same, recent political culture will continue and there will not be much cooperation between the coalition and opposition.
"I believe the opposition forces, Center in particular, are prepared to cooperate. We are prepared to look for compromises and we certainly have proposals," he added.
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Editor: Marko Tooming, Marcus Turovski
