Estonia’s president tasks Kallas with forming govt

TALLINNN (AFP): Estonia’s president on Friday tasked liberal Reform party leader Kaja Kallas with forming a new government, a month after her Reform party won an inconclusive election that has made it difficult for her to forge a majority coalition. Should Kallas succeed, the 41-year-old lawyer and staunchly pro-EU former MEP will become Estonia’s first woman prime minister, but she faces tough competition.

Juri Ratas, leader of the runner-up centre-left Centre party who stepped down as prime minister on Thursday has spurned a coalition offer from Kallas. He subsequently appears to have succeeded in building a controversial majority coalition with the anti-EU far-right EKRE party and the Isamaa conservatives in a bid to cling to power and to prevent Kallas from taking office.

But President Kersti Kaljulaid, who has expressed concerns about including a far-right group in government, said on Friday that she wanted to give election winner Kallas a chance to rally a majority. “Today I made the first offer to form the government to the Reform Party chairwoman Kaja Kallas,” the president said. Kallas said she was accepting the offer “to send society a message that politics can be done in a positive, dignified and open way, without humiliating or threatening anyone.” Last month, EKRE party leader Mart Helme threatened riots should he fail to secure a coalition deal with Ratas’s Centre and Isamaa.