Estonia’s Reform Party Wins in General Election

HELSINKI (Sputnik) - The center-right Reform Party of Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas has come ahead in the parliamentary election with over 31% of the votes, the National Electoral Committee informed.

On Sunday, Estonian voters cast their ballots in the general election, with ten independent candidates and nine political parties (968 candidates in total) having participated in the vote.

"According to the latest data, the Reform Party is gaining 31.5% of the votes in the Estonian parliamentary election, which guarantees it 37 seats in parliament," the electoral committee said in a Sunday statement.

The Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE) is second with 16%, which means that it gets 17 seats in Estonia’s 101-seat parliament, or Riigikogu.

"In third place is the Centre Party that collected 14.8% of the votes, it will have 16 seats in parliament," the electoral committee said.

"This is much better than we expected," Kallas said of the result. "We have ruled out a coalition with EKRE and I stand by my words."

EKRE leader Martin Helme suggested on election night that Reform "stole" the election. "We didn't do anything wrong. We did everything right and with honesty, unlike those who stole our well-deserved victory," he said.

Over 900,000 people were eligible to vote in Estonia’s Sunday general election. According to preliminary data from the electoral committee, the turnout was 63.7%. The Sunday election was the first time that the majority of Estonian voters (313,514) cast their ballots online, the committee specified. Just over 301,000 people cast their ballots in person.