The constitutional amendment, if it is made, will see up to a third of the town's voting-age population unable to vote, and the fear is those still able to vote – Estonian citizens and also stateless persons – will issue a protest vote in solidarity with those now disenfranchised, some of them friends and family.

This will make the outcome of the October local elections unpredictable, at least in Narva and other municipalities with large numbers of people affected by the change.

The protest vote could include abstaining from coming out to vote at all, in a region with already traditionally a low voter turnout rate, or it may play into the hands of the Center Party, whose seven MPs were the only members to vote against the amendment.

The town's high-profile mayor, Katri Raik, told "Aktuaalne kaamera": "Sentiments vary. The question is whether to vote at all, or if voting, then maybe choose something more radical. One thing is clear: Right now, the number one party in Narva is the Center Party, because their members in parliament had the courage to stand by their position until the end."

Raik's party, the Social Democrats (SDE), now in opposition at the Riigikogu, climbed down on the issue and pledged not to vote against the amendment, though the exemption for stateless persons – which as things stand will apply to the October 2025 local elections only – was an SDE-initiated policy while the party was still in office with Reform and Eesti 200.

Meanwhile, Aleksei Jevgrafov, who heads up Center's opposition faction at the Narva city council, said he: "Sees two possibilities – either people won't turn out at all, or they'll grasp that they have to express not only their own opinion, but also that of their family members who may have Russian or Belarusian passports or 'gray passports.' But let us see what we will see."

Residents of Narva themselves proved reluctant to comment on the constitutional amendment — most preferred not to talk to the "Aktuaalne kaamera" crew, while the typical response was that democracy and freedom of speech are no more in Estonia.

One resident who did speak on camera was Tatjana, who said: "With this decision, the government turned people against itself. For example, I have Russian citizenship, but I support Estonian politics, and suddenly I am deprived of the opportunity to express that opinion. I think that's not right."

At the last local elections in October 2021, voter turnout in Narva stood at 46 percent, and extrapolating from this, minus those who will no longer hold the vote, turnout could only be around a quarter, or less if the protest vote takes the form of abstaining.

A total of 7,000 Russian citizens voted in Narva in 2021, as noted about a third of the total.

The constitutional amendment, which passed by 93 votes to 7 and one abstention, will need to receive approval by President Alar Karis, and is the first time the current Constitution, drafted in 1992, has been amended.

If it goes ahead, only citizens of EU member states will retain the right to vote. MPs had initially suggested citizens of NATO countries not in the EU could also retain their voting rights, but this was changed at the last moment. It is not clear why.

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