Estonian PM: Depriving Russian citizens of voting rights takes time

Speaking in parliament's question time, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said that revoking the voting rights of Russian and Belarusian citizens will take time because it requires amending the Constitution. Photo: Madis Veltman

Speaking in parliament's question time, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said that revoking the voting rights of Russian and Belarusian citizens will take time because it requires amending the Constitution.

In response to a question from Isamaa MP Riina Solman about the delay in stripping Russian and Belarusian citizens of their right to vote in local elections in Estonia, the prime minister said that initially it was the coalition's goal is to suspend the voting rights of citizens of Russia and Belarus quickly, without amending the Constitution, to prevent citizens of aggressor countries from voting here as long as a full-scale war is raging in Ukraine.

Kallas explained that the proposed legal solution was similar to how the voting rights of convicts serving prison time are suspended.

«That would have been a so-called quick solution that could come into effect before the local government elections in 2025. Now, both the president and the chancellor of justice are saying that it cannot be done without amending the Constitution,» the premier said.

«What's our next step? The Ministry of Justice will conduct a new analysis, a new version of how this can be done by amending the Constitution. Perhaps there's overwhelming support for this here in the Riigikogu indeed. As you know, we can amend the Constitution either by a very large majority of votes or in two successive compositions,» she noted.

In addition to the prime minister, Minister of Education and Research Kristina Kallas and Minister of Defense Hanno Pevkur spoke in the question time.