I Don't Like Mondays

The results are in and the Centrists don't have to worry about their money tree - they came second by a whisker. So the Reform Party will probably invite the Centre Party into a grand coalition as was the previous administration and Estonians can look forward to "Tax-Free Friday" as promised.

Reform have taken 31 of the 101 seats in parliament by securing 27.7% of the vote and the Centrists claimed 29 from 26.5%. Fatherland - Res Publica (IRL) won 19 seats, the SocDems recovered to win 10, the National Alliance got six as did newcomers the Greens.

Other possible permutations might be a Ref-IRL-SD coalition or even Ref-IRL-NA. A lot of people would be grateful to see the Centrists kept out of the mix as they are notoriously intransigent and would not think twice about going back on agreements if they think it will reflect well to a populist eye.

Voter turnout was up on last time four years ago with 61% of those eligible (546 139) casting ballots. However when we look at the minutiae of the results there are some rather bizarre statistics.

The Estonian electoral system is based upon proportional representation so it will always be the case that certain candidates will not have achieved enough votes to be elected on their own merits as such and their parties are compensated for overall performance by top-up seats in parliament - 27 seats from the 101 contested. For instance the Greens only had one candidate elected on his personal performance but their overall national showing of 7% entitled them to five top-up seats.

But most bizarre is that in the new parliament there are four MPs who polled less than 500 votes each which equates to 4% of the parliament being elected by 0.33% of the electorate! OK, these seats were all allocated in the top-up procedure to reflect the overall position of the parties as opposed to the individual candidates but how much confidence might you have in an MP who has only been able to convince 435 electors to vote for her to gain a seat in the house? That is the position of Maret Marisaar - one of two Green MPs who fall into the sub-500 vote category.