Estonias voted for economic liberalism

In Finland, parliamentary elections will be held in less than a month. "Our little brother" Estonia, on the other hand, was quicker and held its own elections last weekend.

The results provided an interesting point of comparison for us Finns. The largest party for the upcoming term was in fact the current Prime Minister's Reform Party, which will now hold 37 seats in the 101-seat parliament.

The position of the second-largest party went to the EKRE party, which received 17 seats. And the third place was achieved by the local Center Party with 16 members of parliament, following a huge loss of 10 seats. 

Thus, the three largest parties hold a total of 70 seats, and will dominate the politics of our southern neighbor in the future together with a party called Estonia 200, which achieved 14 seats. In addition, members of parliament were elected from the Social Democrats (9 seats) and the Isamaa Party (8 seats).

Since Estonian parties may not be familiar to everyone, it should be noted briefly here that the Reform Party represents market liberal center-right, EKRE is a national conservative right-wing party, and the Center Party is a center-left social liberal populist party.

Estonia 200 is an economic and social liberal party, and the Social Democrats, as their name suggests, are a moderate left-wing party. Meanwhile, the Isamaa Party is a center-right party that led the country after Estonia's second independence.

As my respected reader may have already noticed, Estonian politics are completely different from Finnish or other Western European politics. The country's far-left did not receive a single seat in parliament, nor did the Environmental Party. 

Instead, economic liberalism in particular has a very strong position. And it is even possible that the next Government of Estonia will be composed of only Parties with liberal views on economics.

These differences compared to economically stagnant Western Europe are likely due to the fact that Estonians still remember their experiences of totalitarian rule, which ended only a few decades ago. Also, the economic liberal policies of the new era of independence have led to an explosive increase in their standard of living, resulting in the economic prosperity of the country's citizens surpassing that of e.g. Finns even during my lifetime - and there is not willingness to stagnate the positive development of the economy by unnecessary regulations.

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
Elections in Finland enlight journalistic views
Global warming - searching for the guiltiness
Reducing taxes, enhancing export and paying the governmental debt