The Estonian parliament, the Riigikogu, has lowered the voting age and minimum age for candidates in elections to the European Parliament as of 2029, ERR reports. The amendments will lower the voting age from the current 18 to 16 years and the minimum age for candidates from 21 to 18 years. MPs from the Estonian Reform…
Estonia’s liberal coalition party, Estonia 200 (E200), will not merge with the small non-parliamentary party, Estonian Greens (EER), ERR reports. E200’s council met to discuss the issue on 18 October 2026. E200 chief spokesman Johannes Merilai said that a merger would add nothing to E200’s core identity. Also, he noted that EER’s policies differed from…
Estonia’s Chancellor of Justice, Ülle Madise, has been officially registered as candidate for president, ERR reports. Altogether 75 out of 101 MPs nominated Madise, who was the only candidate registered, ERR reported. Madise will need 68 votes to be elected president in the parliament, the Riigikogu, in the first round on 2 September 2026. She…
Estonia’s most popular candidates for prime minister are opposition leaders Urmas Reinsalu of the national-conservative Fatherland party and Mihhail Kõlvart of the Estonian Centre Party, according to a Norstat poll for the Institute of Societal Studies (YI) in August 2026, ERR reports. The survey showed that Reinsalu was the preferred candidate for prime minister with…
The rector of Estonia’s Tallinn University of Technology, Tiit Land, has effectively conceded the presidential race to his rival, Chancellor of Justice Ülle Madise, ERR reports. After the national-conservative opposition party, Fatherland, decided to support Madise’s candidacy, Land noted that she was likely to be the only candidate with enough support to be officially nominated…
Estonia’s national-conservative opposition party, Fatherland, will support Chancellor of Justice Ülle Madise’s candidacy for president, ERR reported. Fatherland chairman Urmas Reinsalu said that the decisive factors in the party’s decision to back Madise were her “Estonia-centred vision” and “national positions,” ERR reported. Madise’s candidacy was first proposed by the opposition Social Democratic Party, and she…
Estonia’s Chancellor of Justice, Ülle Madise, has officially confirmed that she is running for president, ERR reports. She said that the president’s duty was to safeguard Estonia’s “people, language, culture, nature, freedom, and peace,” stressing the importance of clean nature, of culture and atmosphere, of freedom and responsibility, and of a “caring and developing state.”…
Estonia’s non-parliamentary opposition party, Right-Wingers, has re-elected Lavly Perling as its chairwoman, ERR reported. She was the only candidate to the post. In her acceptance speech, Perling said that “painful decisions” were needed for Estonia not to lose the right to make decisions over its state finances. She insisted that state spending be frozen and…
The leader of the Estonian Reform Party, Prime Minister Kristen Michal, expects Tiit Land, rector of Tallinn University of Technology, to be nominated officially as a candidate for president, ERR reports. He said that Land’s nomination should make the election process in the Estonian parliament, the Riigikogu, “interesting.” However, Michal said that he supported the…
