The results of the parliamentary election held in Estonia on 6 March 2011 reaffirmed the common dangerous trend in Europe today: the degradation of democratic institutions coupled with the crisis leads to an increased extreme right-wing sentiment, nationalism and, consequently, to further degradation of social relations, and democratic institutions.

It should be anxiously noted that the far right parties of neo-liberal orientation and the nationalists have outbalanced again in Estonia. Against the backdrop of the deep economic crisis, tough anti-social policies to reduce the budget expenditures on social services, on the background of the quality of life declining gradually, the ruling parties were able to strengthen their positions and displace from the Parliament two opposition parties. 

This situation was provoked by systematic violations of human rights by the Estonian authorities and the degradation of the functioning of democratic institutions in general. Almost 70 thousand Estonian residents are still deprived of the right to vote, being non-citizens, and, in fact, second-class citizens. In the case of their involvement, alignment of political forces in the legislature, Estonia would have been different.  The ruling circles in the modern Europe are still blind to the simple fact that the so-called ‘non-citizens’ are discriminated in Estonia and neighbouring Latvia. For instance, providing with relevant quota of seats in the European Parliament, according to population, not only 70,000 ‘non-citizens’ in Estonia but also about 300,000 ‘non-citizens’ in Latvia are deprived of the right to elect their representatives to both the European Parliament and the national parliaments.

The provisions of the Estonian election law, and in particular: early voting and Internet voting – raise a reasonable suspicion and concern. Both of them create conditions and make the mass falsification of the voters’ will possible, raise serious doubts about the secrecy of the ballot, open loopholes for bribery of voters.  In such circumstances, we can hardly speak of fair elections. In these circumstances, those who hold the power, the administrative resources, will always win, those with available capital, media resources and tools to bribe voters will win.

It is highly uncertain that any small-and extra-parliamentary parties are likely to win seats in Parliament. The need to pay for the each candidate nomination, the complex electoral system, the restrictions on outdoor advertising, the lack of access to mainstream media - all these reduce manyfold the likelihood for extra-parliamentary opposition parties to get seats in Parliament.

On the background of the generally undemocratic atmosphere and conditions for the election race, the absence of observers at the recent parliamentary election, who ought to be deployed by the international organizations such as PACE, OSCE PA, ODIHR OSCE and others, draws the indignation.

Estonia is now a testing ground for the new non-democratic technologies to hold the neoliberal nationalist political forces onto power. They are unable to win in a fair fight. In this sense, that all the progressive democratic forces in Estonia and Europe should rise to fight for human rights, citizens and non-citizens in Estonia, to provide them with the opportunity to decide their own destiny, the opportunity to change the ruling authorities, and to build a socially secure and promising future for their children, a future without inequalities. Estonian people deserve a true democracy. I’m convinced that the left-wing political forces can only open such a prospect. We shall not stop. The fight must go on.

By Grigore Petrenco, Vice-Chairman of the Party of the European Left