Centrists Take the Lead at Municipal Elections in Estonia

According to preliminary data, the ruling Centrist Party (CP), the new party Res Publika (RE), and the Reformist Party (RP) are the winners of the municipal elections in Estonia, which completed on October 20th.

In Tallinn alone the CP, which won a convincing victory on almost all the territory of the republic, can aspire for 32 out of 63 seats in the municipal assembly of the Estonian capital.

At the same time, the United People's Party of Estonia (UPPE), the Russian Party of Estonia (RPE), the Russian Unity Party (RUP), and the Party of Estonian Unity (PEU), which run on a single Russian list from the UPPE, experienced a failure in Tallinn and the enclaves in northwest of the country.

Specifically, it is still unclear how many seats in the municipal assembly of Tallinn they will obtain.

The elections demonstrated that those Russian politicians, who joined the Estonian CP and RP in time, won a victory. This is the opinion of famous Estonian political scientist Toomas Alatalu. The day before many renowned Russian politicians "deserted" to these parties.

According to UPPE Secretary General Anatoly Yegorov, the reason for Russian parties' failure at the municipal elections boils down to the fact of their late unification. The unification should have taken place even before the parliamentary elections, he said emphatically.

UPPE leader and deputy of the Estonian parliament Viktor Andreyev was more categorical. He believes that Russian parties in Tallinn against which dishonest methods of election campaign were used, have worked little with the non-ethnic population of the republic.

At the same time, he noted with satisfaction that Russian parties managed to double their representation in the municipal assembly of Kohtla-Yarve and maintain it in the cities of Parnu, Paldiski and Valga.

The final results of the municipal elections in Estonia will be known late on Monday.