ABSTRACT
Introduction Students of post-Soviet countries continuously discuss the commonalties and the peculiarities of the party system structure in various political environments. The degree of differences and similarities depend on the perspective of the observer. In general, the Estonian electoral process has shown similar patterns as those in other former socialist countries in the post-Soviet environment: massive fission and fusion of parties, a weak organizational basis, domination of leaders and candidatecentred electoral processes, a relatively low turnout, apathetical and disappointed voters, weak party identification, and high volatility. These are some of those elements that are familiar to all Eastern European societies (see Grofman et al. 2000, Kopecky 1995, Mainwaring 1998, Pridham and Lewis 1996, Rose 1995). However, after the domination of the tabula rasa, the transitional instability and dynamics vocabulary, which characterized mainstream party research in the first years after the collapse of the Soviet regime, there has been an obvious turn to looking at a diverging logic of party competition; everyone has been desperately searching for the first encouraging signs of stability and consolidation in party politics. Indeed, several recent studies have shown clear trends towards stabilization in electoral behaviour (Chan 2001, Krupavicius 1998). However, the last elections in all of the Baltic States have raised serious doubts about the presumed stabilization of the party systems. Time was ripe for the emergence and for the astonishing success of new party players underlying the immature character of the post-Soviet political process (Mikkel 2003a, 2003b; Sikk 2004a, 2004b; Taagepera 2004). In terms of electoral processes there are some specific features that make the Estonian case different to other post-Soviet democracies. In contrast to other Eastern European nations, and to most theoretical presumptions on post-Soviet developments, the Estonian party system is distinguished by two important elements, namely, the general weakness of left-wing parties and a relatively marginal role of ethnic parties. The latter should not necessarily be expected because of the heterogeneous composition of Estonian society, hence there is a
high potential for parties representing ethnic minorities to develop. Why does the Estonian situation differ from the post-Soviet mainstream and theoretical premises in these respects? What impact have these features had on the Estonian political process in comparison to other post-Soviet countries? Estonia’s radical reform policies have produced a situation of high social inequality and conditions where many voters feel relatively poor and deprived. This might have been expected to provide a basis of support for the political left. Yet, the reality is quite different: left-wing parties have proved to be extremely weak and to perform rather poorly in Estonian elections. The communist successor, the Estonian Social Democratic Labour Party (Estonia Left Party since 2004) only made a brief appearance in parliament (Riigikogu) following the 1999 elections, in a joint candidates’ list together with the United People’s Party of Estonia. The Moderates, who claim to have a modern social democratic ideology, have been struggling with identity problems, since having participated in the previous rightwing governments throughout the 1990s, and backing all of their neo-liberal policies. Only a very poor outcome in the most recent local elections (2002), and bleak prospects for crossing the required 5 per cent threshold for parliamentary representation, forced the Moderates to make serious efforts to move towards the left, not only in their political programme but also in their real political behaviour. This sudden shift in positions probably did not do much to help save them in the 2003 national elections, leaving voters confused and the party with a bleak 7 per cent in support (as compared to 15.2 per cent in 1999). Despite this, the Moderates survived and their continuous gradual move towards the left and the change of their name to the Estonian Social Democratic Party (ESDP) in 2004, which has a high symbolic value, have sent a clear message to the electorate. This established the basis for the surprising outcome of the European Parliament elections. Nevertheless, as a consequence of the long-lasting weak representation of the left, other mainstream parties have been able to shape the political agenda by themselves, defining relevant issue dimensions and leaving the left of the Estonian party spectrum largely unoccupied. In doing so, the right-wing parties have also successfully convinced the electorate that left-wing ideas are not even worth considering. Estonia has inherited a heterogeneous society from the Soviet era, which provides a potentially strong basis for the emergence of ethnic divisions between parties. However, ethnic Russian parties have found it extremely difficult to cross the 5 per cent electoral threshold in all of the elections since independence. Even in the 1995 and 1999 elections, when ethnic Russian parties were able to secure parliamentary representation, their share of the vote was still far below the size of the Russian-speaking electorate1. Hence the majority of Russian speakers tend to vote more and more often for the various mainstream ‘Estonian’ parties. The
1 According to the 2000 Population and Housing Census, the share of Russian-speaking
citizens was about 15 per cent, while ethnic Russian parties gained 5.9 per cent of votes in 1995, 8.2 per cent in 1999 and only 2.4 per cent in 2003.
