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The beginning of the year was marked by significant political events in Estonia: several leading members of the Centre Party – the country’s oldest – left it, saying that they do not share the values of the new party leadership.
The political organization, which has given several prime-ministers since it was established in 1991, lost the parliamentary elections last March. Competing parties achieved resounding success by mobilizing the electorate on the security topic.
The Centre Party and the right-wing radical EKRE, formerly part of the governing coalition, found themselves in an awkward position. The conservative party, founded by the former Estonian ambassador to Moscow, Mart Helme, has been repeatedly criticized for defending a patriarchal-populist agenda in line with Kremlin’s interests. The Centre Party even managed to sign a cooperation agreement with 'United Russia'. Even if this collaboration was never fully realized, it always served as a reason to accuse the party of being pro-Russian domestically. For instance, years ago, the party leadership was involved in the construction of an Orthodox church in Lasnamäe, the largest district of the capital, with funds requested by the Centre Party leader Edgar Savisaar from the head of Russian Railways and a member of the „Russkiy Mir foundation“ council, Vladimir Yakunin.
All this, combined with the struggle to preserve Russian schools in Estonia and other significant issues for the national minority (such as fighting for the equality of non-citizens holding so-called alien passports), made the party popular among the Russian-speaking population. Importantly, the party has a large number of Russian-speaking members who, unlike other political forces, hold high positions within it. This has allowed the centrists to win local elections and maintain control for many years over Tallinn, Narva, and other northeastern cities with a large Russian-speaking population.
Estonian Centrists no longer see themselves alongside their Russian-speaking colleagues and are leaving the party
The war in Ukraine struck the centrists unexpectedly. On one hand, the party's soft stance on many issues concerning the Russian-speaking minority alienated Estonian voters. On the other, the party took a clear position, supporting Ukraine under attack. This allienated some Russian voters, who then voted for a new, radically pro-Kremlin political force, one of whose leaders was later arrested on suspicion of working for a neighboring state.
If previously the Centre Party consistently received about a quarter of the votes in parliamentary elections, last year it managed to get only 15% and 16 seats in the Riigikogu (Estonian Parliament). This led to a change in party leadership.
In September, a congress of the Centre Party was held, where Mikhail Kõlvart, the mayor of the capital and a Russian-speaking politician of Korean-Estonian origin, who brought the most votes to the party in the parliamentary elections and was second only to the elected Prime Minister Kaja Kallas in this ranking, was elected as its new chairman.
A few days after the change in party leadership, prominent Estonian members began to leave the Centre Party. The first to make a dramatic exit was Jaanus Karilaid, the grey eminence and ideologue who inspired the centrists' collaboration with the right-wing Estonian parties in the ruling coalition a few years ago.
"Past actions of Mikhail Kõlvart show that he acts not in the interests of Estonia. Strengthening the position of the Estonian language [...] is not among Kõlvart's goals. I am deeply convinced that in light of the Russian-Ukrainian war, Estonia does not need such a political movement, and I cannot consider being part of it," said Karilaid, joining the right-wing 'Isamaa' (Fatherland) party.
Then, 30 more Estonian politicians left the party, including its former leader, Andra Veidemann. Many of them joined 'Isamaa', which, being in opposition during the economic crisis, significantly increased its rating. Russian-speaking politician Maria Jufereva-Skuratovski also left the Centre party's board, having supported the losing candidate Tanel Kiik at the party congress, and joined the ruling Reform Party.
In early January, the crisis in the party became even more evident: several leading centrists, including former ministers Tanel Kiik and Jaak Aab, announced their departure. Most of them joined the ruling Social Democratic Party.
Some say it’s not about Russia, it’s all about losing power in the party and the new leadership’s lack of ideas
According to Vadim Belobrovtsev, a member of parliament and the board of the Centre Party, one of the reasons for this exit lies in the fact that its former leader, Jüri Ratas, and his closest politicians have been making all important decisions in the party almost unilaterally since 2016. "For seven years, they 'clung' to this power so much that, when the party at the congress decided in favor of change and the leadership passed to Mikhail Kõlvart and his team, Ratas and his associates could not cope with it and continue as a united team," he believes.
According to the newly minted reformist Maria Jufereva-Skuratovski, by the time of the September congress, the Centre Party was already in a state close to critical; relations between people from the so-called Kõlvart and Kiik camps were irreparably damaged and reached the point of no return. "I participated in almost all pre-election debates of the candidates for chairmanship and must admit that ideologically Kõlvart and Kiik did not have global contradictions. At some point, Mikhail Kõlvart and his team decided it was time to take power into their own hands, which they managed to do. Only now does it look like a Pyrrhic victory that led to the collapse of the party in just three months," she said to Veridica.
Unlike her Estonian colleagues, Yufereva-Skuratovski does not accuse the centrists of a pro-Russian policy. In her opinion, the split was caused by the new party leadership's inability to offer a perspective. 'Mikhail Kõlvart and his team sharply criticized the party's former leader, Jüri Ratas, for political decisions they deemed erroneous, talking about the need for change and having a plan to restore the party's leading positions. After the congress, it turned out that the victors lacked ideas, political strategy, or the ability to restore a normal working atmosphere in the party and give people an understanding of the further prospects for the organization's development,' she states.
Indeed, it is difficult to accuse the current centrist leadership of pro-Russian sympathies: Tallinn's Mayor Mikhail Kõlvart demonstratively visits Ukrainian cities and communicates with Ukrainian colleagues; contacts with the Russian side have practically ceased; and the municipal authorities have taken on the main burden of receiving and accommodating Ukrainian refugees. Yet, criticism of the centrists from Estonian politicians appeals precisely to a conflict of values related to the so-called 'Russian issue.'
The casus belli was the personal issue of Yana Toom, a Member of the European Parliament from the Centre Party. Local media accused her of financing the legal defense of non-Estonian citizens, pro-Russian activists who left for Russia and were unable to return home because the Estonian state revoked their residence permits.
For Toom, a member of the Centre Party's board, the problem of non-citizens – Russians who were living in Estonia when the country proclaimed its independence and who were not automatically granted Estonian citizenship – has been central to her political agenda for many years. She constantly raises it at the European Union level, acting absolutely within the law. However, during the war, defending pro-Russian-oriented permanent residents of Estonia is almost perceived as treason by society.
This is what former Centre Party leader Jüri Ratas took up, who was recently ready to cooperate with Toom but now declared that there is a conflict of values in the party. Until recently, this statement was seen as an internal party struggle for the top spot on the centrist list in the European Parliament elections, but Ratas ruled out such a possibility for himself and decided to continue his political career in the Fatherland party.
Out of the 16 initial members of the Centre Party's parliamentary faction, only 7 are still in the party. The departure of former Prime Minister Jüri Ratas could be a final blow to the party.
Are the Centrists facing a loss of relevance at national level?
According to Vadim Belobrovtsev, the mass exodus of politicians has only temporarily weakened the centrists. „The party has repeatedly experienced similar 'exoduses' when prominent politicians, dissatisfied with the situation, left it. So, the Centre Party has experience coping with such situations. The reduction in the number of deputies will make our work in the parliamentary faction more difficult, increasing the workload. But work continues, and we will still actively defend the interests of our voters, because those who left the Centre Party essentially demonstrated that their own interests and prospects are more important to them than the interests of their voters, thanks to whom they got into parliament,“ he says.
„I think the party is destined to become a niche municipal party that will fight for the votes of Russian-speaking voters in Tallinn and Ida-Virumaa, but its influence in state politics will be marginal. It's possible that the most loyal voters of the centrists will turn their attention to other parties,“ forecasts former centrist Maria Jufereva-Skuratovski.
If the regionalization of the Centre Party does indeed happen, it will virtually repeat the fate of the Latvian 'Harmony' party, which for many years remained the largest political force defending the interests of the Russian-speaking population but lost influence after the start of the war. In the October 2022 elections, 'Harmony' failed to enter the Saeima; the label of being pro-Russian stuck to it, despite the fact that the party terminated its cooperation agreement with 'United Russia' back in 2017. At the same time, like the Estonian centrists, 'Harmony' lost part of its Russian electorate by condemning the aggression against Ukraine.
At the same time, the situation of the Estonian centrists is not so dire: they still retain power in the capital, have regained power in the border city of Narva, and their 14% rating is not much behind the ruling Reform Party. If the centrists manage to retain Tallinn, which they rule in coalition with the Social Democrats, things might turn out less bleak for them than for their Latvian counterparts.
