Does Estonia need a new political party?

Tuesday, August 31, 2021

The Estonian government is trying to elect a president for the next five years. I liked Kersti Kaljulaid as the Estonian president because of her strong statements against populism. But as a visionary leader she also failed to represent some rather important parts of the population. I suspect her to be a disciple of marketism. Her first and biggest mistake was to say that Church is irrelevant. She was the first president in Estonian history to refuse a Christian ceremony at her inauguration.

Meanwhile I discovered a new political party, which actually is already three years old: Eesti 200. Here are two of their postings (and my feedback):

• Populistide tõusu taga ei ole rahva harimatus, vaid Toompea enesekesksus (Kristina Kallas, 2021-08-31)

  Yes, the analysis of existing problems is quite correct. And yes, there is something fundamental that needs to change (“Me vajame riigina uut käiku, muutust mõtlemises ja sihtides”). But it doesn’t explain why we need a new political party.

• Tallinna eelarve vajab restarti (Aare Lapõnin, 2021-08-31 )

  It hurts to see that a generally correct analysis leads to a completely wrong statement regarding public transport: “Ühistransport (…) ehk siis Keskerakonna sisuliselt sotsiaalpoliitiline eksperiment sõi ligi 13% kogu kulueelarvest. (…) Kuhu raha on läinud ja kuidas tagada kodanikele normaalsed mugavad teenused. Nad ei pea tasuta olema, nad peavad olemas olema. Need, kellel on rahaga kitsamalt, neile saaks otsetoetust maksta. Ma usun, et see oleks mõistlik kompromiss.”

  The project of having free public transport in Tallinn is so expensive because it has a simple but fundamental design flaw: instead of limiting it to inhabitants of Tallinn, it should be free for everybody, including tourists. We don’t need no expensive electronic system emitting touch- and useless beeps. We rather need to pay sustainable wages to the drivers, the mechanics and the cleaners, and of course a transparent management.

My conclusion: no, we don’t need no new political party. This would just cast yet another fighter upon the arena of political leading actors. We have enough of those. Estonia isn’t more complex than other nations. The existing parties in Estonia work more or less transparently.

What we need is a kind of research group that works independently to analyse problems and to suggest solutions. The big tasks of such an entity would be to analyse, research, develop, publish and maintain. The result of this work would be available to everybody and the political parties would use this knowledge pool. That’s what I hope to initiate with my plan for saving the world.