Without Tallinn, What Would the Future Hold for Estonia's Center Party?

By Samuel Kramer - What is the Center Party’s future after the no-confidence motion in mayor Mihhail Kõlvart?

On March 26, a majority in the Tallinn City Council declared no confidence in its elected mayor, Mihhail Kõlvart, who has governed since 2019. His replacement by Acting Mayor Madle Lippus (Social Democratic Party) marks the end of almost two decades of unbroken Center Party tenure in the capital. It has been a truism in Estonian politics since the early 2000s that many Tallinn voters supported the Center Party, providing it with a solid base of support. Kõlvart’s ouster marks the loss of the Center Party’s loyal bloc. One begins to wonder how Estonian politics may look without the Center Party. The country’s bifurcation along urban-rural lines accelerates while established parties lose ground to challengers who attempt to rally disaffected voters.

The importance of Tallinn’s mayoral control to the Center Party cannot be overstated. Before Center regained the mayoralty in 2007 following brief stints in office between 1999 and 2004, the party was in disarray. In April 2004, key Center Party leaders leaked a letter deploring the party’s inability to forge governing coalitions and uncertainty about European Union membership. The authors pointed out that of the major parties, Center spent the least time in the national government — only 21 months total in various coalitions before 2004. The Tallinn mayoralty offered many benefits to the beleaguered party. Tallinn is a multi-ethnic city; governing it burnished Center’s message that it enjoyed support from both Russophones and ethnic Estonians. Tallinn's 2004 population of 400,000 residents offered a sizable voter base. In Tallinn, Center governed a third of Estonians. Controlling the capital thus offered Center leverage, compensating for its lack of national influence.

Tallinn has generated a large share of Center Party votes. In the 2009 local elections, the first after regaining the mayoralty, 54.9% of Center’s votes came from Tallinn. By contrast, the second-largest Center stronghold, Ida-Viru County, provided only 15% of Center’s total. Its main challenger, the Reform Party, was less dependent on any single electoral district for its votes. Harju County and Tartu City, the districts that supported Reform the most, formed only 12.2% and 11.7%, respectively, of their total vote share. The same trend appears at the national level. In 2015, the year before Center formed a coalition government, fully 44.5% of the Center Party’s votes came from the three Tallinn electoral districts. These three districts formed only 29% of second-place challenger Reform’s vote total. The largest Reform Party support base, Harju County, comprised only 19.5%. The Center Party depended heavily on a few electoral districts to maintain its competitiveness.

The party’s overreliance on the capital led to strategic decisions that further distanced it from national power. Center’s Tallinn branch disproportionately affected the national party’s electoral prospects. Its recent scandals damaged Center Party support nationwide. The party’s first prime minister, Jüri Ratas, resigned in 2021 after a corruption scandal involving state lender KredEx and Tallinn businessman Hillar Teder. While Mayor Kõlvart was cleared of wrongdoing, the party’s reputation sank, and lingering scandals forced Center out of a coalition with the Reform Party in 2022. In local elections that year, Center lost its absolute majority on the city council. It had to ask the Social Democratic Party to form a coalition government. Sharing power meant sharing district leadership and ceding chairmanship of the city council. This was a sizable climbdown, and some Estonian public figures urged the Social Democrats to hold Center accountable for alleged long-running corruption and mismanagement. This imbroglio notwithstanding, the Center Party still held the mayoralty and, until the 2023 parliamentary elections, remained the third-biggest force in Estonian politics.

Last year’s parliamentary vote proved catastrophic for the Center party. In the 2019 parliamentary elections, Center won 23% of the vote. In 2023, it only received 15%. Not only did the party suffer a drop in votes, it lost support from the demographics it courted most. The slump is definitive evidence that Tallinn’s support for Center fell in the intervening four years. For the first time, Reform took first place in all three districts, defeating Center. Moreover, Russian-speakers elsewhere eschewed the Center Party, compounding its Tallinn vote loss. In eastern Ida-Viru County, which has a Russophone majority, Center ceded ground to former party member Mihhail Stalnuhhin’s independent list and the Estonian United Left Party, successor to the Communist Party of Estonia. Other Russophone voters switched to the new Estonia 200 party, which earned only 12,000 votes less nationwide than Center did. Many post-election analyses cited the dissatisfaction with the Center Party’s corruption scandals and lackluster tenure in office as the cause. Center’s dependence on Tallinn cost it national leadership.

Kõlvart’s election as party leader in September 2023 accelerated the party’s disintegration. Kõlvart campaigned on an unabashedly populist message, positioning himself against the incumbent national coalition. In an interview conducted before his election as Center Party leader, Kõlvart presented a pro-environment, forward-looking image. However, many ethnic Estonians perceive him as overly friendly to the Kremlin and divisive. Moderate Russophone voters are similarly apprehensive. Postimees columnist Andrey Kuzichkin observed that Kõlvart’s support came from “the Russian street,” those who feared change and benefited from the Center Party's status quo. By the beginning of 2024, 10 of the 16 Center Party parliamentarians had left the party. The departures included figures whom observers deemed future Center Party leaders. Maria Jufereva-Skuratovski left for the governing Reform Party, former Prime Minister Jüri Ratas joined center-right opposition Isamaa, and Ester Karuse switched to the Social Democrats.

The party’s brewing troubles — corruption scandals, sinking popularity, and a controversial new leader — came to a head in March 2024. The KredEx affair’s unquiet ghost reappeared when the Tallinn circuit court fined the party one million euros. Despite a likely appeal, options for the Center Party remain limited. Moreover, opposition City Council member Marek Reinaas publicized municipal budgetary shortfalls, undermining Kõlvart’s credibility. The ruling and attendant problems impede the party’s ability to campaign on a large scale, given its dependence on one area. Already, Center Party donations are drying up: It only received €17,351 last quarter, of which €4,800 came directly from Kõlvart. Nationally, the party ranked fifth in total donations, behind Reform, Isamaa, and EKRE, as well as the extraparliamentary Parempoolsed (Estonian: Right-wingers) party. Center’s former secretary-general suggested paying the fine could spell the party’s end. For now, the Center Party leadership appears unperturbed. They believe the governing coalition’s difficulties in taming inflation and ongoing culture wars provide ample fodder for the no-holds-barred campaigning that brought Kõlvart to power. He felt sufficiently secure as Center Party leader to blame its corruption largely on his predecessor, Ratas. However, the numbers tell a very different story. When Kõlvart ally Yana Toom was recently quoted saying he was as popular as Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, she omitted the fact that the prime minister faces low ratings.

So what is Center’s future after the no-confidence motion? Collapse seems extremely likely. It no longer has a stable voter support base. Tallinn and Ida-Viru County were instrumental to Center’s electoral strategy. Ida-Viru voters’ apathy and the Tallinn electorate’s growing hostility eroded this advantage. Instead, Center’s rivals are now appealing to different parts of Center’s coalition. The Social Democrats, as the governing coalition’s “internal opposition,” can attract progressive-minded ethnic Estonians and Russophones. Younger Russophones are more integrated into Estonian society and largely share similar values as their ethnic Estonian peers. “Young Russian people are very different from what they were 20 years ago,” explained former Center Party politician Ain Seppik.

Other Center Party voters seem likely marks for the far-right Conservative People’s Party (EKRE). The Center Party’s populist wing could easily find a home in a party which has spent increasing amounts of time cultivating a new urban, Russian-speaking audience. Its leader, Mart Helme, once stated that Kõlvart could be an attractive coalition partner. Indeed, only one of the five EKRE members in the Tallinn City Council voted in favor of the no-confidence motion in Mayor Kõlvart. However, Helme and Kõlvart both denied plans for a future coalition agreement. Kõlvart has since declared Center and EKRE the “only two opposition parties left” in Estonian politics. Some suggest Center could rebound after a stint in opposition — its polling numbers are already stabilizing, giving the leadership cautious optimism.  One could draw comparisons to how the UK Liberal Democrats party became a municipal powerhouse after disastrous votes in 2010 and 2011. However, that presupposes a solid electoral base and organized team from which to begin the long trek back to power. Without a solid foundation in Tallinn or Ida-Viru County, Center will continue its downward spiral.

The Center Party’s political woes are reshaping Estonian politics at the national level as well. The other major political players — especially the Reform Party, EKRE, Social Democrats, and Isamaa — stand to benefit from a free-floating electorate. The exodus of center-right ethnic Estonians from Center dramatically raised the center-right Isamaa party’s profile. The party assiduously courts the Center Party’s rural, ethnic Estonian wing, represented by former Prime Minister Jüri Ratas. Isamaa is using the negotiations over the city council district to promote its policies, leading to opposition complaints that Isamaa is injecting “national” politics into local governance. In response, Isamaa positioned itself as the guardian of the public good. Sander Kase, Isamaa’s leader in the Tallinn City Council, said “it will not be enough to dismiss Kõlvart” to change city administration. The Isamaa leadership avoided rhetorical appeals to culture war issues in recent speeches. Pollsters noted that new arrivals from the Center Party boosted Isamaa’s popularity in traditionally conservative districts. After losing its status as the largest center-right grouping to Reform in 2007, Isamaa is poised to become Estonia’s most popular party.

Isamaa’s return is buffeting the present opposition, EKRE. The far-right standard-bearer is attempting to bring the Center Party’s remnants under its sway: EKRE founder Mart Helme claimed Center would back its unnamed candidate for the second vice-speakership position in parliament. Helme’s party, however, faces a challenge in winning over Center’s Russophone voters. EKRE expended vast resources on courting Russophone voters in the 2021 local elections, only to find few interested in supporting ethnic Estonian nationalism. The added competition from former Center Party member Mihhail Stalnuhhin as well as the pro-Kremlin KOOS movement, which nearly entered the Riigikogu in 2023, shrinks the available pool of anti-establishment Russophone voters. As inflation soars and the gap between urban and rural areas deepens, EKRE may find a niche for itself. However, Isamaa poses a formidable challenge to EKRE due to its own unimpeachable nationalist credentials and greater financial resources. EKRE is already losing important politicians to the resurgent center-right: Its Tallinn City Council member Urmas Espenberg left for Isamaa on March 26, the day of the no-confidence vote. EKRE’s support, while sizeable, remains vulnerable to other parties on the right.

The Social Democrats may be in fifth place presently, but the major parties’ uncertainty benefits them greatly. The party is rising in some polls to second place. It entered a coalition with Center ostensibly to enact a left-leaning agenda; simultaneously, their decision to negotiate with the major opposition parties sealed Kõlvart ’s fate. The Social Democrats are in coalition with Reform and Estonia 200 at the national level; a successful anti-Center coalition would recreate the progressive alliance in Tallinn. Locally, Isamaa would participate, but as one of several stakeholders. Its lack of leverage drives Isamaa’s current negotiation strategy. Nonetheless, the Social Democrats understand they hold an advantage in the talks; already, party leader Jevgeni Ossinovski was proposed as mayor. The Social Democrats’ long-standing cooperation with Russophone movements and support for non-citizen voting in local elections may also aid them in securing the community’s votes nationwide. Polling clearly shows that the Social Democrats’ gains come partly at Center’s expense.

Ironically, the Center Party’s biggest rival — Reform — may see few benefits from the Center Party’s malaise. The Reform Party vaulted to power in 2007 by positioning itself as the only political force capable of matching Center’s geographically spread out voting base. Center-right powerhouse Isamaa was popular in the countryside but struggled in urban areas. For example, the last Isamaa mayor of Tallinn left office in 2005. The Reform Party did well in the countryside and among affluent urbanites — they provided Reform its over 40% vote share in the Tallinn suburbs during the 2023 election. However, the same cannot be said about voters in other parts of Estonia. They consider the high cost of living and low wages major concerns and hold the Reform Party partly responsible. Strikes and disagreements with the Reform-led government also negatively affect the party’s support. Already, Reform faces its lowest rating in five years. Isamaa and EKRE increasingly make inroads into regions that delivered consistent Reform pluralities. Opposition parties are taking advantage of the public, tying the rising cost of living to the current cabinet. Add the other parties’ gains from Center, and Reform could be significantly weakened in the next electoral cycle. Internal disagreements within Reform have lessened the party’s cohesion as controversial former prime minister Andrus Ansip wrestles with Prime Minister Kallas for control of the party. His acrimonious withdrawal from the European Parliament race could even cost Reform a seat. This places it at a disadvantage compared to other major parties. Reform must address Ansip’s departure and the cost of living crisis if it wishes to remain the natural party of government. While the party membership decisively reelected Kallas as Reform’s leader, maintaining the current seat count requires influence beyond their traditional base.

The Center Party’s gradual disintegration helps smaller parties at the expense of the established forces in Estonian politics. The Center Party’s electoral base, rural or Russophone, was primed to look for non-systemic alternatives. Social Democrats and Isamaa see a resurgence after years of marginalization, while Reform and EKRE remain tied to their bases. Those parties — which were away from the frontlines of national politics — are well-positioned to gain Center Party voters’ support. Center’s fate remains unclear. It might regroup around Russophone-interest politics. It could help support a right-populist coalition led by EKRE. However, its supporters are tempted away by prospects of real power, and myriad court cases render Center ill-equipped to fight a campaign. Ultimately, the 2025 local elections will be the best gauge of how the Estonian public reacts to the changed partisan landscape.

Samuel Kramer is a PhD candidate at the University of St. Andrews and a former Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Tartu.

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