Estonia: Political Developments and Data in 2024

Abstract After the parliamentary elections of 2023 and some of the political initiatives of the new government that followed, the year 2024 was relatively quiet in Estonian politics. Support for the government parties as well as the approval rating of the Prime Minister remained very low and the change in government leadership that took place in the middle of the year did not change this. The support of the electorate was firmly behind the opposition throughout the year. Even though the year was politically uneventful, it was noticeably unstable on the level of political parties. Defections between parliamentary party groups continued, especially in the first half of the year up to the point where the number of officially unaffiliated MPs was higher than it had ever been since the democratic transition in the 1990s. No significant new political player emerged from this political volatility between the parties, but it was evident that the actors in the party system were going through significant internal tensions and changes.