IRL contrives «patriotic» comeback

Photo: Postimees.ee

«I understand why people are mad at us. They expect us to have great goals,» said Pro Patria and Res Publica Union (IRL) chairman Margus Tsahkna to comment the currently plummeting ratings.

He thinks the world to be undergoing great changes for which reason the people need to feel secure. And that is what IRL intend to offer. «The world view of our party is settled and we are not expected to give some single election promises, rather the idea what the Estonian national state will look like in the future,» he said.

This Saturday, in Creative Hub, Tallinn, the party is hosting an event planned to be its new beginning. Inside of IRL, they are talking about Isamaa 2.0 as referring to the former Pro Patria i.e. Isamaa, the Fatherland. Paraphrasing the Web 2.0 thing is meant to conjure the new version of the Internet once proposed. What, however, would that spell for IRL?

The chairman says the process will be triggered this Saturday with panel discussions participated by opinion leaders close to their world view to deliberate on Estonia’s language, culture, economy and demographics in 25 years time. That will be preceded by a speech by Mr Tsahkna to the nearly 400 people invited, offering his vision of the future of Estonia.

Mr Tsahkna says Isamaa 2.0 is aimed at wording the next 25–30 years goals as opposed to next elections period. «Let’s be honest, ever since the ERSP (The Estonian National Independence Party) and Isamaa, our party has been one to set grand goals for Estonia: the reforms of the beginning of 90ieas, the entry into EU and NATO, etc,» said a confident Mr Tsahkna.

«We have not offered a new grander goal for the future of Estonian national state and for that people find fault with us. Now is the right time with no elections coming anytime soon and we are able to also talk about unpopular and painful decisions which need to be taken,» he continued. According to Mr Tsahkna, Isamaa 2.0 ought to solve these problems or at least move towards that.

So what’s coming? After the speech tomorrow, people at the party and experts will be involved in brainstorming sessions and workshops to gather the ideas and systemise them.

On top of that, they will have «dangerous ideas» events, the kind they used to have before the last elections, where Mr Tsahkna says crazy suggestions will be publicly discussed. «We need to be able to freely and without dogmas deliberate various including crazy ideas in order to word a programme for Estonia for upcoming 25–30 years,» said Mr Tsahkna. He did not deny this would also have to provide content to the open nationalism idea.

At the end of May, all this will culminate in the party’s general assembly where the ideas sifted out will be discussed and the programme confirmed. There they will also ratify amendments to statutes so as to make inner elections transparent. This is because of the people with criminal background brought to last general assembly as introduced to the party by member of IRL Sander Kilk. They were soon expelled from IRL ranks.

The general assembly is planned to be the culmination of the Isamaa 2.0 process where the entire party is involved from grass roots level, to word its grand ideas.