Postimees: It's getting crowded on the conservative opposition wing in Estonia

TALLINN – The newly registered nationalist conservative party raises the question of how many parties with a right-wing worldview can  Estonia accommodate and how right-wing or conservative these parties are in actuality, Postimees says in an article published on Tuesday.

The Party of Nationalists and Conservatives of Estonia (ERK), created by former members of the Estonian Conservative People's Party (EKRE), is the second party on the Estonian party landscape with the word "conservative" in its name. Notably, 345 of the 546 registered members of the new party are former members of EKRE.

The new party faces competition from at least four right-wing parties in terms of electorate, Postimees says.

When asked which parties could be called conservative in Estonia, the leader of ERK, Henn Põlluaas, replied that definitely EKRE, Isamaa, and "of course, ERK."

As for the Center Party, Põlluaas described it as centrist, which once supports conservative, and then liberal positions, making them difficult to place on the political scale. When it comes to The Right, Põlluaas believes that although they could be conservatives on economic issues, ideologically they represent the liberal wing.

"We are certainly conservatives with a much broader reach than EKRE," he said. "EKRE has put itself in a narrow niche and is in strong confrontation with all the other political parties, both on individual issues and in the way they communicates and their rhetoric."

Regarding ERK, Põlluaas said that they do not rule out cooperation with anyone.

"Our goal is to restore national integrity, and we want to eliminate divisions in society."

EKRE's deputy chair Evelin Poolamets said in his comments to Postimees that although the newly established party and EKRE have nearly identical statutes and declared values, they have yet to see if ERK's words and actions align. Describing Isamaa, she remarked that that party's values are actually liberal.

"They are liberally conservative parties, parties of convenience in a sense, which want to please as many people as possible," she said of both Isamaa and ERK, adding that, paradoxically, EKRE is called populist. "In a situation where we do not want to please as many people as possible."

The former EKRE members who founded ERK have said that one of the reasons for their departure was the pro-Russian stance demonstrated by EKRE's leading politicians and their ambiguity about supporting Ukraine.

The EKRE deputy chair meanwhile likened the situation to a divorce, where there is great anger after the great love has ended and all bets are off.

"It's not worth getting carried away with emotions," Poolamets said. "If they prove to be worth something, maybe we can work with them in the future."

In Poolamets' estimation, there's hardly any space left for anything else between Isamaa and EKRE.

Isamaa chairman Urmas Reinsalu believes that the new party formed as a result of the split within EKRE primarily seeks to appeal to EKRE's voter base. He also points out that the split was not driven by ideological reasons but rather by personal conflicts.

Regarding pro-Russian sentiments among conservatives, Reinsalu said that this can only be associated with the Patriots for Europe group in the European Parliament, established under the leadership of Viktor Orbán. He emphasized that such positions are not inherently characteristic of conservatism, but rather depend on voter expectations, which may be different in countries situated farther away from Russia.

Tõnis Kons, member of the governing board of The Right, describes the concepts of conservatism and liberalism as vastly deformed and very far from how they were understood until a few decades ago.

"We have therefore abandoned the use of these terms to define ourselves. We are classically a right-wing party. According to the international political map of Europe, we are seeking to join the European People's Party," Kons added.

According to political scientist Martin Mölder, there are three conservative forces in the Estonian system of political parties: EKRE, Isamaa, and ERK. Political expert Tarmo Jüristo, however, argues that The Right has always been part of the conservative camp because they model themselves after Finland's Kokoomus party. In the opinion of political scientist Rein Toomla, we do not have any genuinely conservative parties here. For such to emerge, much more time and stability are required, he says.