Estonia’s local elections 2025: winners and losers | News

Isamaa was the biggest winner taking home 18.6 percent of the vote, compared to 10.2 percent four years ago. The Social Democrats doubled its share from 4.9 percent in 2021 to 9.9 percent, while non-parliamentay party Parempoolsed participated for the first time winning 4.7 percent. 

Center support dropped from 24.4 percent to 21.1 percent but the loss was significantly smaller than analysts had predicted until recently.

Government parties Reform and Eesti 200, and opposition EKRE party were the biggest losers at Sunday’s election, “Aktuaalne kaamera” reported on Monday.

Reform suffered a major loss. The party’s vote share fell from 17.3 percent to 10 percent. EKRE also saw a sharp decline – from 13.2 percent to 8.2 percent – and failed to win a single seat on Tallinn City Council. Junior coalition partner Eesti 200 was nearly wiped out receiving just 1.7 percent of the vote nationwide.

Both Reform and Eesti 200 have recieved record low support in recent polls.

Prime Minister and Reform Party leader Kristen Michal said the party was satisfied with only a few isolated results, while it failed in most regions.

“This result is not a good one. I think it was more of a signal from voters that all the confusion over the years — with taxes being introduced, then repealed, and all kinds of back-and-forth decision-making — had an effect. The message is clearly that such flailing and aimless scrambling must stop,” Michal said.

Eesti 200’s board and Riigikogu faction met on Monday morning to analyze their poor election results. No one will be replaced in party leadership roles, but it was agreed that the party needs a clearer worldview and focus.

Eesti 200 Chair Kristina Kallas listed several reasons why the party failed.

“Certainly one mistake was that we did not take a clear and quick position on the Johanna Maria Lehtme case, and internal party scandals never make anyone look good. Of course, those internal frictions have been a very painful experience for us. They have also eroded trust in us. I think we also failed to conduct a deeper analysis of the last European Parliament elections,” Kallas said.

EKRE also underperformed, and the party plans changes in Tallinn as it prepares for the next Riigikogu elections in 2027. Chairman Martin Helme said electronic voting continues to be a form of organized election fraud. He also cited last summer’s internal party conflict, which ended with the expulsion of several active members, as a reason for the poor result.

“We thought we had gotten past that. When we look at the party’s functioning, its organization and structure, all the holes that had appeared were nicely patched up, but something is still missing. Maybe we ourselves thought we had moved on more than we actually had, and that’s something we need to analyze,” Helme said.

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