Which district decides fate of Tallinn?

Photo: Toomas Tatar

In Estonia’s capital, it could be the small parties that settle the issue – on them hang the current opposition’s opportunities to get into council.

Tallinn’s strange elections system is a compromise between two opposites. On the one hand, it favours smaller Estonian-speaking parts of town like Pirita or Kristiine; on the other hand, Centre Party is making use of the distribution of compensation mandates, to get maximum of Lasnamäe folks into council.

In Tallinn, local elections stand out not only for their bigness and media furore; even formally and legally they differ from what happens in other towns and communes. So, basically, on October 20^th, elections in Estonia happen according to two differing systems: one for Tallinn, the other for the rest of Estonia.

«In Tallinn, the elections system is rather similar to that of general elections,» says adviser to election committee Mihkel Pilving. Meaning that in Tallinn council seats are distributed in three rounds: first the personal mandates in districts; then district mandates (eight for Tallinn, every city district equals electoral district); and lastly the pan-Tallinn compensation mandates.

Amount of inhabitants irrelevant

While claiming that the Tallinn electoral system is like that of Riigikogu, a couple of differences still need to be highlighted. Head of electoral committee and of Office of the Chancellor of Justice Alo Heinsalu says the main difference is how district mandates are distributed in Tallinn.

Leaving aside the complicated talk of coefficients, a simple example can be given. Let’s say that, in Lasnamäe, the cost of one district mandate is 1,000 votes; however, a party has received 3,830 votes equalling 3.83 district mandates. With Riigikogu elections, that would mean that the party in question would get four district mandates. In Tallinn, the answer would be only three. Which would not mean the party loses the votes left over; even so, the «leftovers» will move over into the third i.e. compensation round.

Here, however, it is no longer the candidate’s personal votes that count; all that matters is his/her place in the general city-wide list. For instance: four years back, in the ranks of Centre Party, Daisy Järva (Lasnamäe) made it to the council with 15 votes, Andres Kollist doing the trick with 37 votes from Mustamäe. 

The other difference with general elections is that even though, when distributing compensation mandates, both use the d’Hondt system, calculation methods differ. Basically, in both instances, d’Hondt favours the winning party; however, with Riigikogu elections the favour is slightly bigger than in the case of Tallinn.

For a long time, Centre Party has desired to have all of Tallinn turned into a single electoral – true, these past years they have not been pushing that too hard anymore, having taken easy wins anyhow. Centre Party’s argument has been that the Tallinn system favours the small districts like Pirita or Kristiine, allotting more mandates to these, and harming the bigger ones meaning Lasnamäe.

In that sense, Centre Party is right: truly, the smaller districts are being favoured. The Tallinn city council having 79 seats or mandates, 40 of which are divided equally between eight city districts with each getting five seats irrespective of if you are Pirita with 17,000 inhabitants or Lasnamäe (117,000); only the 39 remaining seats are distributed in proportion to district dwellers. All told, that will mean that Pirita currently has six mandates and Lasnamäe 16.

Even though the Tallinn electoral system is unconventional and complicated for an ordinary voter, still there are no major combinations for the major parties (Centre Party, Reform Party, soc dems and IRL). Things have more or less settled into place; the system cannot be manipulated by extreme craftiness of candidate placement. 

Issues may arise with marginal matters. Consider, for instance, Mart Helme and the Conservative People’s Party (EKRE). According to polls, Mr Helme personally is popular in Tallinn, while his party is not. Mr Helme himself may get a party mandate; another matter being whether EKRE crosses the 5 per cent barrier. (Interjecting: to this Mr Helme agrees not: «I am convinced we will get over 5 per cent,» Mr Helme informed Postimees.)

Thus: where should a popular politician run, to get his/her own mandate while also helping his/her party to the max? In some cases, that will be obvious. Edgar Savisaar runs in Lasnamäe, as a) Lasnamäe is the largest district and collecting their votes the party list gets the biggest possible haul, and b) he is personally popular in Lasnamäe.

«Helme must first settle his goal – get in, himself? Or pull the party across the threshold? This may mean differing choices,» Rain Rosimannus of Reform Party. «In addition to the general amount of voters – the size of fishing pool – and size of simple quota in a district, one must also consider where he is really popular – where the fish are.»

Run at right spot

Certainly, it is not a matter of one name only. The same kinds of choices are also being made by soc dems, IRL and Reform Party. With these, however, things are not that intense; as the lists are longer.

Even so, in view of Tallinn results and issues of power, the choices are weighty. Both Reform Party and IRL hope to defeat Centre Party’s absolute majority. Right now, according to polls, it is on the verge of it. Reform says three things will decide the battle: Firstly whether the small ones (EKRE, Free Patriotic Citizen) cross the threshold. Should they cross it – good; should they narrowly miss it – bad.

Secondly: how active will the Russian speaking voters be? Last time, they were exceptionally active; now IRL and Reform Party hope for a little less activism on the Russian side.

And thirdly: will Andres Anvelt, Eerik-Niiles Kross and Valdo Randpere be able to produce some fresh ideas?

The decisive factor here being whether any of the «little ones» crosses the threshold. «I know that we will mostly snatch votes from IRL, and some from Reform Party; and I know they will not like it,» says Mart Helme. Reform Party retorts it is not an issue if they snatch some; they rather fear they snatch too few.