TALLINN - Experts from a presidential round-table commission on national minorities expressed their concern this week over the lack of political involvement among Estonia's national minorities.
Shortly after the commission's Nov. 8 session, Klara Hallik, a well-known sociologist and commission member, said that the country's political leaders continue to ignore non-Estonian politicians.
Hallik observed that although there is no way to precisely measure the political involvement of a national minority, a number of indicators show that their governmental participation has, and continues to remain low.
"We can have a look at the ethnic origin of highly placed public servants. We can also analyze the political success of the parties based on the interests of certain minority groups [such as the Russian Party in Estonia]," said the sociologist. "The government's failure to accept Russian and other politicians as legitimate representatives of their national groups is the main reason for such a low involvement - in both decision-making processes and politics in general."
"The major Estonian parties perceive local Russian politicians as political figures who are easily bribed," she added.
Iris Pettai, a sociologist from the Estonian Open Society Institute, said that nationals and Russian-speaking minorities in the country continue to live their own lives without finding much mutual interest.
About half of native Estonians reject every issue related to national minorities, she added. The minorities, in turn, maintain a passive and potentially unstable loyalty to the state, which could pose a threat to national security if a serious crisis were to arise.
While sociologists continue to highlight minority issues, leading political party representatives prefer to keep strong arguments to themselves.
Reform Party member Aarne Veedla noted that many citizens and politicians believe that Russia's growing pressure on the Baltics to deal with minority problems hampers friendly relations.
"[Many] remember [Russian political analyst] Sergei Karaganov's strategy, according to which the Russian minority in the Baltics must serve as Russia's lever, used to push its political interests in the region," said Veedla.
In response to whether or not renegade Russian deputies in the Tallinn City Council have damaged the overall image of Russian politicians in Estonia, Nikolai Stelmach from Res Publica Party, who is Russian himself, said that party affiliation was a personal matter for everybody.
"A party is neither a sect nor a Freemasons' fraternity with lifetime membership," said Stelmach. "I agree that a number of politicians in Estonia have discredited all politicians with Russian names, but there are still many honest Russians in Estonia who could become good politicians."
Veedla added that the majority of renegade Russian politicians who recently changed their party affiliation began their political careers in nation-based parties, which are now becoming obsolete.
"They [the renegade deputies] ran from nation-based parties to ideology-based parties. This shows that nationality and language are not the most important issues now. What matters is the youth and education, for example," said Veedla.
Stelmach supported this opinion, arguing that the lack of Russians who hold leading positions in large Estonian parties merely refers to an absence of properly prepared Russian politicians, and not to discrimination of any sort.
"Have a look at the business sector. Many of the top businesspeople in Estonia are Russians. Hence, local Russians have the potential to make it to the top in the business sector, but they do not want to do this in politics," said Stelmach.
Hanon Barabaner, another commission member who also heads the Sillamae Institute of Economy and Management, said that political parties which raise minority issue awareness in their pre-election campaigns are, so far, the only signs of progress in this area. However, most politicians later abandon their minority campaign platforms until the next elections.
"We need a law on national minorities. Otherwise all the round-table discussions will turn into never-ending and futile conversations," said Barabaner.
