Tag: Estonians

Aa Aa Kaja Kallas, leader of the opposition Reform party which won the Estonian elections over the weekend, gave an interview with Raw Politics host Tesa Arcilla on Wednesday. Kallas is on track to become the country's first female prime minister. A lawyer by training and former MEP, she addressed how she was asked to be more masculine while on the campaign trail. "There were times during the campaign when the polls didn't show very good results. There was a lot of pressure on me that I should do something differently. There were two people who gave advice, and they meant well, they gave me advice like: wear trousers, cut your hair, be more aggressive, speak with a lower voice." "To me, it sounded like: 'be more masculine'. So I was wondering, it might be, that (since) the leaders of our country have been mostly male, that people may think there's something wrong with me because I'm different. Kallas also discussed Estonian politics and the rise of far-right groups. Watch the full interview in the player above.

In an interview with ERR earlier this week, chairman of the Estonian Conservative People's Party (EKRE) Mart Helme said that the country's intelligence services are meddling with the political parties as well as with elections, and pointed to what he calls the "deep state" that covertly influences Estonia's politics. Helme said he differs between the terms "regular state" and "deep state" to describe how Estonia is run. What Helme calls the "deep state" consists of Estonia's special services, who influence and direct Estonian politics in secret. But where it gets serious is where the deep state meddles with politics. And that's what we're seeing in Estonia," he added. Special services meddled with 2016 presidential elections, Helme claims Helme worked for the Foreign Ministry in the capacity of Estonia's ambassador to Russia, and later as one of its deputy secretaries-general. In the early 2000s he was an adviser to the minister of agriculture as well. "I don't doubt it in the slightest that the deep state was involved in the presidential elections, and that half of the candidates had its blessing," he said. "If someone now tries to tell me that I'm a victim of conspiracy theories, well, I'm not," Helme said. Asked by ERR what Estonia's political mechanisms are to keep the special services out, Aeg pointed to internal controls as a first level of control.