Estonia appoints the first female head of government in its history

Estonia inaugurates a new stage in its democratic life.

This Tuesday, the small Baltic country, of 1.3 million inhabitants, has appointed the first female head of government in its history after days ago the former prime minister, Jüri Ratas, resigned to see his party immersed in a corruption scandal.

Kallas, 43, had won the 2019 elections, but the liberals of Centro, together with the extreme right of EKRE, made her a sanitary cordon to keep her in opposition.

“I appreciate your work in the fight against the pandemic.

For me it is an honor and a great responsibility to assume the leadership of the Government, ”said Kallas, of the Reform Party, on Tuesday, after taking over from his predecessor.

Kallas will form a center-right coalition with the Rat party as a partner, as he won the majority in the

on Monday

(Parliament).

I wish him strength and success in the tough fight against the coronavirus pandemic, "said the outgoing prime minister, who resigned on January 13 involved in a corruption case, despite which he will continue to lead his party, although without a portfolio in the Government.

The country is being severely punished by covid-19, with an average biweekly incidence now standing at 590 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, according to data from the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC).

With Kallas as prime minister, two of the three Baltic countries - the Government of Lithuania is led by the conservative Ingrida Simonyte - have a woman in charge of their Executive.

Estonia also has the peculiarity that it has a woman as head of state, Kersti Kaljulaid.

Following the orderly transition between the outgoing prime minister and the new head of government, the first Estonian woman to take that post, there remains a persistent power struggle between the two since the March 2019 parliamentary elections. The Reform Party, under the Kallas's leadership, was the most voted force in those elections, where he rounded 30% of the votes, compared to 22% of the centrists of Ratas.

The then prime minister managed to retain power allied with the far-right EKRE, who had been in third position, plus the conservative Pro Patria.

With the new coalition, now led by Kallas, the format of alliances between the right, the center and the center-left is returned, which definitively leaves the extreme right aside.

EKRE was from the beginning a continuous source of scandals: a few months after the formation of this government, the head of Foreign Trade, Marti Kuusik, resigned on suspicion of gender violence.

Interior Minister Mart Helme later sparked a crisis with Finland with a disparaging and sexist comment against the then newly elected Prime Minister Sanna Marin.

Kallas, however, now wants to wipe the slate clean: "We will rebuild our relationships with our allies, our neighbors, and we will try to restore our name as a good country to invest in," the newly appointed Prime Minister said Tuesday. .

Scandal

The fall of Ratas was not due, however, to EKRE, but to a corruption scandal in his party.

The Estonian prosecutor's office is investigating a € 39 million loan from the state credit institution Kredex, granted in 2020 to a large real estate project, known as Porto Franco, without prior competition.

Justice considers that there were illegal negotiations around this operation that involved the exchange of favors.

That is, the allocation of money to the Porto Franco project, which tries to recover an area of ​​the city that has traditionally been industrial in exchange for political support for the party of the former prime minister (Partido de Centro) in the municipal elections next fall.