MOSCOW – The Prime Minister of Estonia resigned on Wednesday, devouring his coalition government of centralists and far-right populists by a corruption scandal over the misuse of government loans intended for coronavirus pandemic.
The departure of the Prime Minister, Juri Ratas, indicates an unusual attack of political unrest in a country that joined the European Union and also NATO in 2004, and presents itself as a bastion of pro-Western stability. established the western border of Russia.
It is highly unlikely that this orientation will change as Mr. Ratas’ most likely successor, the leader of the opposition center-right reform party, Kaja Kallas, is a staunch supporter of the US military alliance. Estonia’s president has me. Kallas was asked on Wednesday to form a new government, but it was unclear whether she would be able to bring the necessary votes to parliament.
The outgoing Prime Minister, Mr. Ratas, has been at the head of the small government of the Baltic country as leader of the Center Party since 2016, whose strongest support was a large ethnic Russian population that liked its sometimes left-wing policies.
He resigned after reports that his party was among those under criminal investigation for lending by a state agency, KredEx, to a private property project in the port area of Tallinn, the Baltic Sea capital of Estonia. The money was supposed to go to companies hit hard by the pandemic.
Mr. Ratas denied knowing that he had done anything wrong, but said that as party leader he would have to accept ‘political responsibility’ for any wrongdoing.
One of the suspects in the case is an adviser to Finance Minister Martin Helme, a far-right politician who leads another party in the coalition and once described his immigration policy: ‘If you are black, go back. ‘
The inclusion of mr. Helme’s EKRE party in the government, which has severely damaged Estonia’s liberal image, follows an election in 2019 in which Mr. Ratas’ Center Party fared poorly, but managed to stay in power by forming a coalition with the far right and a rival. mainstream conservative party.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, of which Estonia and two other Baltic states were a part, the country has built up a strong economy and become one of the most wired and technologically advanced countries in the world.
Unlike neighboring Latvia, which has been hit by a long series of scandals related to its large financial sector, Estonia has enjoyed a reputation as a clean government and finances, although it was badly damaged in 2018 when the Estonian branch of the Denmark Danske Bank is trapped. in an international investigation into the billion-dollar money laundering.