According to the Estonian Constitution, permanent foreign residents can vote in local elections in the municipality where they live. But the ruling coalition government expressed on Monday, November 4, its desire to withdraw this right from Russian and Belarusian citizens residing in Estonia, to avoid interference from Moscow and Minsk in the upcoming municipal elections.
“Today we have agreed in the coalition council to recommend to our parliamentary groups that they urgently modify the Constitution so that the citizens of the aggressor States are no longer the ones who make the decisions in local elections”Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal told public television channel ERR on Monday.
More than 80,000 Russian citizens with a residence permit today live in this former Soviet republic of 1.3 million inhabitants, which regained its independence in 1991 and has a significant Russian-speaking minority.
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, several Estonian political parties have proposed excluding Russian and Belarusian citizens, and sometimes stateless people living in Estonia, for fear of electoral interference. The coalition hopes to change the Constitution as quickly as possible so that “Citizens of the aggressor states and stateless people will not be able to vote in the municipal elections next October”declared, in a statement, Helir-Valdor Seeder, head of the parliamentary faction of the Isamaa party.
The draft amendment could be ready on Thursday for the start of parliamentary scrutiny.
