A new Russian-speaking party formed in Estonia. It will be called Eestimaa Rahvaste Partei (translates roughly as the “Party of the peoples of Estonia”) and the founders promise that the party will protect everyone diskriminerad in the country. In the first place the party will appeal to Russian voters, who until recently was loyal to the “Russian vote magnet” Edgar Savisaar (Edgar Savisaar) and don’t want to forgive Centrist party that she said goodbye to his former leader.
It is no coincidence that the name of the new party refers to the peoples of Estonia in the plural. Thereby it is emphasized that Estonia has never been monocultural society.
But a little over 20 people who belong to the group who initiated the creation of the party Eestimaa Rahvaste Partei (ERP), for many years indicate that modern Estonia, apparently, wants to be a country only for Estonians.
Members believe that the state systematically discriminare Estonia of Russian residents.
“This is absurd”, — says Olga Wierd about their statements.
I met Wierd for morning porridge in one of the Tallinn café. She is a lawyer and describes herself as “absolutely ordinary Russian, who spoke in Estonian”.
She didn’t like my suggestion to call her a Russian-speaking Estonian.
Strong prejudices — still not discrimination
According to Viard, from a legal point of view there is no discrimination in Estonia is not, although in the Estonian Constitution of 1992, has a pair of suspicious paragraphs.
This does not mean that minorities are all perfect, but the existing problem is rather a practical sense. The majority of Estonians are at the mercy of strong prejudices, and this makes it difficult for many Russians to find their place in society.
“When we are unjustly treated, it’s not discrimination. Estonia abides by all international laws and treaties”.
According to Viard the new party as if still living in the 1990s, when the authorities ‘ actions were indeed discriminatory, and many Estonians directly forced the Russian to leave the country.
“This is a stillborn idea today to create a party around the belief that Russian diskriminerad, says Viard. The so — called “Russian party” with the same message even 15 years ago, have not received more than 2% of the votes”.
The last time this party participated in the parliamentary elections in 2011. Then Vene Erakond — Russian party received 0.9% of the vote.
For human rights
The leader of a group of creators ERP name is Mstislav Rusakov, he is also a lawyer.
Rusakov — Director of Kitezh (Kitež), a civic organization that presents itself as human rights. The organization usually claims that in Estonia, the problems with human rights is huge, and in Russia, we can say insignificant.
Many other members of the group are associated with the same Russian human rights defenders. Some of them appeared in the annual report of the Estonian security police the number of persons representing a threat to the country.
The official media are considered to be enemy
We don’t know about the future of the party.
The representative of the party has not appeared for an interview, despite a preliminary agreement with the Finnish journalists.
Press Secretary of the party Sergei Seredenko said, according to Estonian radio ERR, he is not obliged to answer questions from the big media, because there’s already one MP from the centre party, Michael stalnuhin, which does not.
“He proved that not to talk with all media — is absolutely normal,” — said Seredenko.
Estonia is really afraid of the Kremlin’s influence
Estonian media have little to write about the party of the future, but treat it more seriously than Olga Wierd and most of the Russian in Tallinn.
There is real concern that loyal to the Kremlin Russian party succeeds in the elections of 2019. The reason for this can serve the fact that Centrist party last fall got rid of their former leader Edgar Savisaar, whose shape is always “attracted Russian voices”.
This, according to Estonian media, provoked hostility to the Centrist parties in the Russian-speaking voters. It has been suggested that the fall Savisaar may in the worst case even lead to the fact that a completely new party will be one of the top three after the next election.
This is also nonsense, said Breakfast cereal Olga Wierd.
“It seems to me that the new party leader and Prime Minister jüri Ratas (Jüri Ratas) seem like a good person. And while Centrist party still draw support is not lost.”
You need a very big scandal that the Estonian political map has radically changed, at least with regard to its Russian section, says Viard.
“This could, for example, occur if it turned out that the Ratas are funding some shady characters”.
The new party looks unprofessional
She adds that those who think that Russians will vote for ERP full of prejudices.
“The party with the discrimination of Russian in the middle of the program, can receive only a very small percentage of support of Russian voters.”
In addition, it needs rich sponsors.
It could end before it even started
“If they come from the Internet, and will lead the campaign in the real world, you might get some support among the elderly or Russian in IDA-Viru County, i.e. the Russian-speaking part of Estonia. But this is not enough to propel someone to the Parliament”, — said Viard.
The question is, whether it comes to the party at all to this stage. To register a party, you need to enlist the support of 500 people. So far collected about 100 signatures.
