The new coalition of Center Party and Reform Party divided the posts in the Cabinet, which took oath on Jan. 28, almost equally. Eight ministries went to the Centrists, who have more seats than any other in Parliament, while the Reform Party got six, including that of prime minister.
Polls show that the ratings of both parties are rising, and according to a phone survey conducted by the market research company ES Turu-uuringute AS, only about 30 percent of Estonian residents do not support Kallas as prime minister.
About 37 percent of people in the same poll say they accept Kallas' government only as an emergency measure to keep the country going until the next elections, 14 months from now. A quarter of respondents would have preferred extraordinary elections now.
A former collective farm director becomes the new finance minister. Harri Ounapuu, 55, the Center Party's deputy chairman, is a certified agriculture specialist. From 1971 to the early 1990s he worked on different collective farms and agricultural companies.
In 1993 he headed Eesti Hoiupank, one of Estonia's first commercial banks, and in 1996 became director of the insurance company Eesti Kindlustus.
He became a Center Party MP in 1999. Ounapuu speaks English and Russian, is married and has two sons.
Meelis Polda, 34, the head of a financial company in Saaremaa, was tipped to be finance minister until he became a target for the press and opposition parties who doubted his political experience.
Reform Party member Kristina Ojuland, Estonia's first female foreign affairs minister, says she will focus on relations with Russia a lot more than her predecessor Toomas Hendrik Ilves did.
Ojuland, 35, said the present condition of Estonian-Russian relations was "awful," and she wants to encourage pragmatic and positive relations. She added that ending the problematic double customs duties with Russia would be difficult, but that an increase in tourism was a real possibility.
"As foreign minister, I will try to make conditions conducive for Russian tourists to come to Estonia, and vice versa," she said.
Ojuland is a well-known figure in Europe. She has been the vice president of the Parliament Assembly of the European Council since the beginning of 2000. Before that she worked in the ministries of Justice and Foreign Affairs.
She holds a degree in law from Tartu University and a diploma from the Estonian School of Diplomacy.
Ain Seppik, the new minister of interior affairs, was born in 1952. A law specialist, he graduated from Tartu University and worked in the police and the prosecutor's office from 1976 to 1994.
He later worked as an adviser to the interior minister for a couple of months and then as director general of the Estonian police department.
In 1999 he was elected to the national Parliament as a Center Party member. He has two sons, and speaks German and Russian.
Centrist Eldar Efendiyev, 47, a former mayor of Narva and the new population minister, is the first minister of Azeri origin in Estonia.
He graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Teacher Training as a history teacher. From 1976 he worked as a researcher at the Narva city museum until becoming mayor in 1999.
Efendiyev, who speaks Russian and English and has four children, wants to focus on making the problems facing the northeast understandable for the national majority. He will also support controversial plans to build a mosque in Tallinn.
The boys and girls in the Cabinet are the new ministers of defense and education, both from the Center Party. Mailis Rand, 27, is still working on her Ph.D. thesis at Uppsala University in Sweden. The subject of her research is the protection of refugees.
She has also studied in the Netherlands, Hungary, the U.S.A. and U.K., and speaks English, Finnish and Russian, and a smattering of German, French and Dutch.
Rand's hobbies include kick-boxing and disco dancing.
Defense Minister Sven Mikser, 28, holds a master's degree in English from Tartu University. He joined the Center Party in 1995 while a librarian at the Estonian Academy of Agriculture . From 1996 to 1999 he was an assistant at the philology faculty of Tartu University, and in 1999 he became an MP. He also speaks German and Russian.
Observers think Mikser's best point is his polished command of English. When the government of Mart Laar was under fire during last year's "picture scandal," when Savisaar accused Laar of shooting at his photograph on a firing range, the Center Party positioned Mikser as their foreign affairs minister should the Laar Cabinet fall.
Siiri Oviir, 54, is one of the most experienced women in the government. In 1975 she received her bachelor's degree in law from Tartu University and started to work as an assistant in the courts of the Estonian Soviet Republic.
Oviir, the new social affairs minister, has held the post before, from 1990 to 1992, and for some months in 1995. She only narrowly lost out to Peeter Kreitzberg as the Center Party's presidential candidate in last year's presidential elections. As we know, Kreitzberg lost.
Oviir has been an MP since 1995. She is married, has three daughters, is an active member of various women's organizations and speaks English, Finnish and Russian.
Jaanus Marrandi, 38, will be minister of agriculture. He holds a degree from the Academy of Agriculture, where he majored in hydrotechnics. Since 1999 he has been a Center Party MP. He is married, has one daughter, and speaks Russian and English.
The Center Party's Liina Tonisson will head the united ministries of Economy and Transport and Communication. She graduated from Tallinn Technical University and later studied in the U.S.A., Sweden and Denmark.
In the late Soviet-era she worked as an economy expert at enterprises flirting with capitalism. She has been an MP since 1992, and for a period in 1995 headed the Ministry of Economy. She speaks English and Russian.
Culture Minister Signe Kivi of the Reform Party keeps her position in Laar's Cabinet. A former artist and president of the Estonian Union of Artists, she graduated from the Academy of Arts in 1980. Kivi, 48, speaks Russian, English and Finnish, and lists theater, cinema, music, gardening and fitness as her hobbies.
Heiki Kranich, 40, minister of environment, also keeps her job. Kranich, deputy chair of the Reform Party, trained as an electrical engineer in St. Petersburg, and has been rotating in Parliament and government circles since the restoration of independence. He is divorced, and enjoys reading and hiking.
Toivo Asmer, 55, and Mart Rask, 52, from the Reform Party hold on to their positions as regional minister and justice minister, respectively. Asmer is a dedicated Formula racer, having won the Soviet Union Grand Prix six times, and an accordion player.
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