Ocnus.Net
Estonian Roulette
By Paul Abelsky, Russia Profile 6/3/07
Mar 6, 2007 - 8:14:00 AM
The center-right ruling government in Estonia comfortably won the Sunday parliamentary elections, strengthening the alliance that has dominated the country in recent years. With all polling stations reporting, Prime Minister Andrus Ansip’s Reform Party took 27.8 percent of the vote, or 31 seats in the 101-seat legislature, while its present coalition partner Center Party, led by Economy Minister Edgar Savisaar, garnered 26.1 percent and 29 seats. The nationalist Pro Patria-Res Publica Union (IRL) ascended to third place with a surprisingly strong showing at 17.9 percent.
Three more parties surpassed the 7 percent threshold to qualify for parliament seats. The Social Democratic Party with 10.6 percent and 10 lawmakers could join the Reform Party and IRL, according to the latest reports from Estonia, to form a new coalition that may tilt politics further right. Economic issues factored in prominently in the electoral breakdown – with tax policy, wage increases, and adoption of the euro topping the list of concerns. The left-leaning Center Party drew a large measure of its support from the Russian-speaking minority in Estonia and lobbied for the abandonment of the flat income tax rate, an approach opposed by Ansip’s party.
In the fifth parliamentary vote since Estonia recovered independence in 1991, the ruling cabinet has for the first time maintained its grip on power after none of the previous governments served a full four-year term in office. From the international standpoint, the most provocative issue that emerged in the run up to the Estonian elections had been the legislative proposal to relocate the “Bronze Soldier,” the monument to Soviet forces that took over the capital of Tallinn in 1944. The Reform Party, along with IRL, has been at the forefront of the initiative that has stirred misgivings in Europe and triggered a public firestorm in Russia. Not surprisingly, numerous Russian news reports on the Estonian elections led with the headline that the desecrators of the monument picked up strong backing from the electorate.
The Reform Party certainly received a boost at the ballot box, gaining 12 more parliamentary seats than in 2003, suggesting the pre-electoral fracas around the monument advanced its prospects. Starting in the summer of last year, Ansip led the movement to declare the monument and the gravesite around it as “symbols of Soviet occupation.” On Jan. 10, the Estonian parliament passed a law sanctioning the government’s administration of military burial sites, overriding municipal authorities. President Hendrik Ilves vetoed the measure as unconstitutional and returned it to the legislature for further review. Meanwhile, Sept. 22, the day of Tallinn’s liberation from Nazi rule, has been proclaimed in mid-February as the Day of Morning for those who fought to preserve Estonia’s independence.
Some observers ridiculed the continuing controversy around the monument as an electoral stunt, but the issue resonated with voters and remains likely to tarnish relations between Russia and Estonia in months to come. Estonian officials have promised to revisit the relocation initiative soon after the elections.
In the run up to the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in 2005, much has been made of the claim that the four-year conflict which Russia calls the Great Patriotic War started for countries in Central and Eastern Europe with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939 and properly ended with the Soviet retreat in 1991. The official view in Estonia collapses the two occupations into a seamless period of tyranny and casts the country as the unwitting victim of malevolent powers. What is also blurred is any distinction between Russia and the Soviet Union, and the Soviet experience provides rich parallels for today’s developments.
“Russia should stop looking for enemies, like the Soviet Union did,” said Heiki Ahonen, chairman of Estonia's Occupation Museum in Tallinn. “Unfortunately, Russian policy seems to get closer and closer to the one practiced in the Soviet Union. This includes state-controlled church, oppression of free media and aggressive foreign policy language.”
The furor around the monument is a symbolic outcropping of Estonia’s disparaging view of its Soviet past and the presumed esteem in which the Soviet Union is still held in present-day Russia. “Russia’s understanding of history is to be blamed for the conflict situation,” said Kadri Liik, director of the Tallinn-based International Center for Defense Studies. “Russians are restoring something close to the Soviet interpretation of history, and they haven’t yet understood basic things to bring them closer to Estonia. Most Russians think the USSR won the war thanks to Stalin, but he was an ally of Hitler, and maybe the great sacrifice in the war could have been a lot less without him.”
Having joined the EU and NATO in 2004, Estonia has not felt constrained in airing its grievances, although it has found little overt support inside the European establishment. The burden of mending the ties between the two countries, according to Liik, is on Russia and its ability to reassess the Soviet past. “Estonia wants a constructive relationship and no one is setting any conditions,” she said. “Moscow’s reaction is so emotional because it feels we are invading their concept of history. The process of reconciliation should happen naturally. If Russia is unable to take a critical view of history, it is going to be a problem for its relations with the rest of the world.”
In the view of some Estonians, what compounds the historical differences is exasperation with Russia’s disputed democratic credentials, and the eastern neighbor’s domestic policies are beginning to be seen as a security risk. “Of course there is still a fear of Russia, it’s our biggest neighbor,” said Ahonen. “Deteriorating democracy there is certainly a threat to us. I do think that many Estonians would be very happy to have a prosperous, democratic Russia, but unfortunately we do not have any means to reform Russia. Estonia has made more than one step backwards – most notably agreeing to a loss of territories behind the Narva River and in the Pskov region.”
Ahonen went on to question the allegiance of the local Russian community, which makes up nearly a third of the country’s 1.35 million population and whose inability to integrate has remained one of the burning problems in Estonia. Indeed, stringent language and citizenship requirements have set back the group, rendering it fragmented and politically impotent. A December report from Amnesty International – titled “Linguistic minorities in Estonia: Discrimination must end” – condemned the linguistic constraints and Estonia’s language inspectorate which enforces the guidelines.
Those residents who settled in Estonia after 1940 were not granted automatic citizenship status in 1991, although over a half of all non-citizens has become naturalized since then. The EU has recently eased travel regulations in an effort to relieve the tensions. Yet the situation inside Estonia, and the interaction between the country’s constituent ethnic groups, continues to smolder.
“The controversy around the monument is only one of the ‘symptoms,’ but in reality, the situation is much worse,” said Aleksei Semjonov, director of the Tallinn-based Legal Information Center for Human Rights. “An ethnocratic system has been installed in Estonia, which has displaced the minorities – particularly Russians – from the political and partly from the economic sphere. There is clear evidence of widely practiced segregation and discrimination.”
Russia has wavered in extending steady and effective support, and seems not to have a consistent grasp of the situation on the ground. Semjonov says the Estonian establishment displays an “impoverished,” “provincial” view of history which it has sublimated in the struggle against the monument. While different interpretations of the Soviet past are unlikely to be reconciled any time soon, the overriding concern for the Russian community is to coordinate a viable political movement that will be able to contest issues and defend its legitimate interests. The short-term implausibility of rallying such organized support, according to Semjonov, means the controversies will fester in the near future.
“The Russian community should mobilize politically on an ethnic basis to safeguard and promote its well-being, in the same way that Estonians mobilized in opposition to the Soviet regime in the late 1980s,” he says. “But such ethnic mobilization is highly uncharacteristic of the Russian mentality, which tends to orient its allegiance to the ruler or the state. And the local authorities have done everything in their power to hinder and marginalize the community’s political aspirations.”
Source: Ocnus.net 2007