Blogging the democratic revolution
Yesterday, Estonia held its national parliamentary election. Prime Minister Andrus Ansip’s Reform Party increased its position from 19 to 31 seats in the 101-seat parliament, while their coalition partner in the previous government, the Centre Party, gained one seat to move to 29. The Union of Pro Patria and Res Publica holds 19 seats, the Social Democrats hold 10, and the Greens and the People’s Union of Estonia each hold 6 (the agrarianist People’s Union was the third coalition party in the previous government). This is a remarkable gain for the liberty-oriented Reform Party, although it does not provide enough…
…in the context of Latin America’s failed economic reforms is a truly interesting comparison. After all, failed reforms in Latin America have left it at the mercy of increasingly hostile, unproductive, dead-end leftist leaders, while rule-of-law-loving Estonia has seen itself vault to nearly first-world status in just a few short revolutionary years. Mary Anastasia O’Grady has her new Index of Economic Freedom out, with a discussion of Estonia’s “revolutionary reforms” (you think she reads Publius???) and of Latin America’s increasingly braked reforms, something worth considering as we watch Latin America slide ever further into the leftist vortex of no return.…
In less time than it takes for a new baby to reach U.S. voting age, the nation of Estonia has transformed itself from a cold, gray, stagnant outpost of the Soviet Empire to one of the world’s most impressive dynamic democracies. Its banks are pristine, its one of the most wired countries in the world, it is famous for its absence of corruption, as well as its flat tax, its sound stable money, its property rights, its free trade (unilaterally done with no miserable CAFTA battle, as Alvaro Vargas Llosa noted.) The only shortage out there for Estonia is enough…
Bush is travelling to Russia to for the 60th anniversary of V-E Day on Monday. I almost used the word “celebrate” in there, but that would not be enirely accurate. Verbal sparring has edged its way up between the United States and Russia, as President Bush and Putin insist upon different views of the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe. President Bush has tried to set the record to that Soviet occupation tyrannical and that Russia needs to work toward democracy. Putin has pressed that while Stalin was a tyrant, the Soviet Union did Eastern Europe a great justice by liberating…
The president has just finished a mini press conference with the presidents of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. The affection and good humor between the four leaders were palpable. Two of Bush’s statements were particularly telling. In answer to a question speculating on whether the US and Russia would cut a deal in which Russia would ensure that Belarussian President Lukashenko would not be reelected in exchange for American endorsement of the next government, Bush answered that cutting deals on someone else’s future was unacceptable. He noted that hat’s the same kind of deal that sealed the fate of these countries…
Every day I ask myself, “So, what government will fall today?” Because literally, in 2005, that’s what seems to be happening. Estonia is no exception. TALLINN, Estonia — Estonia’s prime minister announced his resignation and dissolved his government Monday after lawmakers said they had no confidence in his justice minister because of a controversial anti-corruption plan. Prime Minister Juhan Parts, 38, said the government coalition could no longer effectively lead the ex-Soviet Baltic country of 1.4 million people. “The time of this government is over,” Parts said in remarks to the Riikogu, or parliament, adding that his resignation would take…