The move is a further blow to Eesti 200's election prospects, as Jašin will be now running for SDE at the March 2027 Riigikogu elections, and not Eesti 200.

Jašin said he also discussed his future with the Reform Party, but chose SDE on ideological grounds

"My choice is above all issue-based and ideological," Jašin said. SDE have devoted considerable attention to education over the years, he added.

Jašin said he had supported Eesti 200 a proposed merger with the Greens as early as the local elections nearly a year ago, adding in his view, work on this began too late given the current electoral cycle.

Jašin stressed that the question was not only whether the party could clear the electoral threshold at the next Riigikogu elections, but that he also assessed his own chances of entering parliament on an Eesti 200 list as small if the party won only 5 percent of the vote – the minimum needed to win seats under Estonia's electoral system.

Jašin ran in the 2025 local elections in Tallinn's Lasnamäe district. Despite having served as deputy mayor in the previous SDE-Eesti 200-Isamaa-Reform Tallinn coalition, he received only 291 votes and was not returned.

Nonetheless, his departure from Eesti 200 will harm the party's chances of retaining any of the 12 Riigikogu seats it currently holds. The party currently polls at 1.9 percent, well below the 5-percent threshold, and has been in merger talks with the Greens, whose support stands at 1.1 percent. Combined, the two would still not reach the threshold, however.

Jašin, 29, served as Tallinn's deputy mayor for education from April 2024 to the entry into office of the current Center-Isamaa coalition late last year, with responsibility for the transition to Estonian-language education in the capital's schools and kindergartens. In March 2025 he briefly became an alternate member of the 15th Riigikogu before resigning the same day to continue as deputy mayor.

Another leading member of the party, Kalev Stoicescu, left the party in summer and joined Parempoolsed, leaving Eesti 200 with 12 seats. The party had won 14 seats at the 2023 election but hit troubled waters soon after following the resignation of one of its MPs over a donations to Ukraine embezzlement scandal. That MP's replacement, Züleyxa Izmailova, in turn left for SDE in 2024.

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