Estonia uses an open list system in European Parliament elections, which means the popularity of individual candidates plays a key role in determining the outcome. Martin Mölder assesses how this might play out in this year’s European elections.

This article is part of a series on the 2024 European Parliament elections. The EUROPP blog will also be co-hosting a panel discussion on the elections at LSE on 6 June.

Like most other European countries, Estonia is using a party-list based system for the 2024 European Parliament elections. The lists are open, which means that the popularity of individual candidates at the polls matters for who gets elected. This, together with the fact that only seven seats are allocated to Estonia, contributes to these elections being very candidate-centred and means that voters’ preferences in some cases markedly differ from how they would vote in national elections.

In the context of the latter, the national-conservative Fatherland has been polling ten percentage points ahead of all other parties (with their support reaching up to 30%) after the ratings for the Reform Party (the party of the Prime Minister) and Estonia 200 (also a current governing party) collapsed following the 2023 parliamentary elections.

In the context of the European Parliament elections, however, the popularity of Fatherland is a few percentage points below 20%. Leading at the European Parliament election polls are currently the Social Democrats, who are gathering much more support than they are in national politics. This is almost exclusively due to the high personal popularity of their top candidate in the election, Marina Kaljurand.

Like elsewhere in Europe, the electorate’s interest in the European Parliament elections is likely to be lower in comparison to parliamentary elections and this interest is especially low among younger voters. This in turn is likely to be a disadvantage for the Social Democrats, as their typical voter is younger. For the rest of the parties, their support for the European Parliament elections mostly corresponds to their support in national politics.

Likely outcomes

It seems likely that five out of the seven seats that Estonia has in the European Parliament will go to current Estonian MEPs. Marina Kaljurand from the Social Democrats, Urmas Paet from the Reform Party, Jaak Madison from the Estonian Conservative People’s Party (EKRE) and Riho Terras from Fatherland are almost certain to get re-elected.

The front running candidate of the Centre Party is the former Mayor of Tallinn and the leader of the party, Mihhail Kõlvart, who has said that he will not take up his position as an MEP if elected. This means the one place for the Centre Party, which also seems quite certain, will go to Jana Toom, who is also currently in the European Parliament.

The remaining two seats are being contested by four parties and six candidates. Both the Social Democratic Party and EKRE have a probability of getting a second mandate and in both cases, there is a single contender within the party who is clearly ahead of the rest of the party’s candidates. For the Social Democrats, this would be Sven Mikser, another current MEP, while for EKRE, it would be Martin Helme, the current leader of the party. There is also a considerable probability that the Reform Party or Fatherland might get a second mandate and there is strong competition within both parties for this second seat.

In the case of the Reform Party, both Hanno Pevkur (current Minister of Defence) and Marko Mihkelson (chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in parliament) have an almost equal probability of getting this second seat should it go to the Reform Party. It must also be noted here that the Reform Party currently holds two seats in the European Parliament. One of these seats is held by a former Estonian Prime Minister and European Commissioner Andrus Ansip, who is not contesting these elections.

This is seemingly due to a heated conflict with the head of the party and the current Prime Minister, Kaja Kallas. The latter declared publicly that Ansip has lost the support of the party and that he should not contest these elections as a Reform Party candidate. This and the fact that Kallas herself also decided not to run in the European Parliament elections considerably weakened the position of the Reform Party. While before it was almost certain that they would retain their two places, these conflicts within the party have decreased this probability.

Finally, for Fatherland we also see a moment of internal party competition for a possible second seat in the European Parliament. Even though the party is underperforming considering its popularity in the context of national elections, there is a considerable probability that they will snatch one of the two contested seats. Within the party, its current leader, Urmas Reinsalu, and a recent addition to the party, Jüri Ratas, a former Prime Minister and leader of the Centre Party who switched allegiances at the beginning of the year, are drawing an equal amount of support from the electorate.

A potential wakeup call for the Reform Party

In terms of national politics, the most important question in the context of the European Parliament elections is whether the Reform Party will lose one of its seats or not. If they do not, then it is an incentive for the party to continue with their business as usual, even though the current leadership and political decisions of the party have almost halved their support over the last year and roughly two-thirds of the electorate would like to see the Prime Minister resign.

If they do lose this one seat, however, this might be a wakeup call for the party, a signal that something needs to change in the party’s leadership and political style. After all, local elections are looming around the corner in 2025 and once these have been held, parties will already need to start thinking about the next national parliamentary elections in 2027. The Reform Party cannot risk contesting these elections from a position where they could lose big.

Note: This article gives the views of the author, not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy or the London School of Economics. Featured image credit: European Union