Reform Party has not lost hope re forming of government

  • 2019-03-21
  • BNS/TBT Staff

TALLINN - Even though the focus of the last few days has been on the coalition negotiations between the Center Party, the Estonian Conservative People's Party (EKRE) and Isamaa, the Reform Party has not lost hope when it comes to forming a government itself, the daily Postimees reports.

After a nearly two-hour meeting of the new parliamentary group of the Reform Party on Wednesday -- where the discussion focused, for example, on a future plan in the current situation where coalition talks are being held by the Center Party, EKRE and Isamaa --, the party's plans were also confirmed by Reform Party leader Kaja Kallas.

"Firstly, we are working to offer a positive alternative actually to those people who will then have to vote for this coalition. We are communicating with those people and showing that all this does not have to be this way," the party chair said.

In other words, the Reform Party is seeking allies who would not vote in favor of the potential coalition in parliament nor against the coalition to be formed by Kaja Kallas, and the party leader expressed hope that there would also be those people in the current situation.

It would not be mathematically possible to form a second coalition in parallel as the Reform Party and the Social Democratic Party (SDE) would have altogether 44 votes between the two of them.

"We are constantly communicating with the Social Democrats, the interest of both of us is that this coalition is not born and the opposition of namely both of us is relatively similar on the basis of values and we are in communication with regard to how we can do these things better together," Kallas said.

Thus, another seven MPs would be needed to thwart the plans of the trio consisting of the Center Party, EKRE and Isamaa.

"However, there are a lot of people in those parties, which are around the table there, who are really doubting the rightness of this coalition for Estonia, meaning these are people who must ultimately push a button -- either vote against our more positive alternative or vote in favor of this alternative," Kallas said.