Election campaigns

“Elections are about choosing sides, but inaugurations are about closing ranks” by Ted Kulongoski.

 In my opinion this years elections have gone really wrong. Elections should be about every party talking about their good sides and proving what they can do for the country.  But NO. They fight and argue. They compete who has the better election advertisements. Like for example the time when Keskerakond had these new green advertisements about the change and then the Isamaa and Respublika youngsters put those red stickers all over them. The stickers said that Keskerakond wasted 1,5 million kroons on this gossip. For me it is really immature how they talk lies about each other. And I don’t even want to vote.  

            About different election campaignsI liked the one where Keskerakond is going around the Estonia with the bus. This has never done before. Everybody who can’t come to the city or who has questions can ask them. I really like that they had thought about country people also. And of course it is a good way to gain more votes. http://www.postimees.ee/?id=115677

            Keskerakond also made a game for campaign. Against Andrus Ansip. Keskerakond spend tens of thousand kroons on this game. Many Estonians played this came. I think it was childish, but people who don’t like Ansip loved it. http://www.postimees.ee/?id=109678

            This year the elections have been really different. Parties have chosen many different styles of advertisements. The advertisements have cost a lot, but in my opinion they haven’t been effective. It has been just one big circus about who is better and who is not. 

Madli Vest

Politics and Municipal Elections

As we all know, elections in Estonia are not far and that´s the reason why I have chosen to bring up the importance of elections, because it is something that many of us are not concerned about. Why should we take part of this and why do we need changes?

First of all, I have to mention that the main concern related to elections is the fact that people think that elections do not make any difference. Although there are many people who do not find it reasonable to vote, they should think about the fact that there are only about 60% of people who do care ad it is definitely not enough. It is sad to think that only a little bit more than half of our population do care about our future. Second problem is the lack of knowledge – people are not aware of consequences which come with not taking part of voting. I think that all these election campaigns are an important part of informing people. Even if a person does not want to take part of voting, then after Keskerakonds´ campaigns against Reformierakond : “Nende poliitika hävitab töökohad!” - “Their politics destroy employment!” or “Nende poliitika peatas majanduskasvu!” – “Their politics stopped the economic growth” are pretty strong arguments and a person who passes this kind of advertisement cannot be disinterested about it.

We do need changes in our country. Let´ s ask ourselves: do we see Estonia as a perfect country with a perfect government and perfect politics? Even though you might not care, there is definitely a party you do not want to be in charge of our future. You can make a change, because if you do not, someone else does and you might not like it. Even if you would not like to see any changes means that you want things to stay the same. Everyone has its own opinion and it is wrong to think that it does not count. It does!

 

“Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote.”

By George Jean Nathan

 

”Thinking is not to agree or disagree. That is voting.”

By Robert Frost

 

To see more about elections : http://www.vvk.ee/

 http://valimised2009.com/category/kohalikud-valimised-18-oktoober-2009/

Grethel Gahler

Kids School Lunches are getting away from the goverments budget cut down.

Most of the time from yesterday’s meeting took the new working law. In the middle of that ministers had a discussion to cut down the children’s school lunch money. Instead of that they decided to cut down the budget of family support money and police salaries, but this is not clear yet. These meetings are going to last a lot of time, because these decisions are not easy yet they have to be done. But most of the ministers were happy if they realized that the school lunches won’t get cut down. http://www.postimees.ee/?id=119470

Yesterday were most of the parent’s quite worried because politicians said that if they are going to cut down the budget they are going to take away the money support from schools to offer a cheaper lunch for the students. Estonian education minister was the one who was really opposite to that decision. At the end of the meeting they still didn’t touch the children’s school lunch money. As said in the article that it was a long discussion and it went reached almost in the next day. But I think that it was worth of that.

I think that it’s a good decision because as Estonian minister of education said ‘’Educational ministry won’t show no initiative on this, because I think that paying for the school lunches from the children is very important that the country will do that, because most of the homes are not able to give the lunch from home to children.’’ (http://www.postimees.ee/?id=119358) Lukas said that in the Postimees article on Thursday. And he was right. It’s not fair to cut down children’s lunch money that comes from the government. Because I think that they realize that the students can’t study if they are hungry and they have no money to buy the lunch from somewhere else. It is logical that it’s unfair for those people whose money is cut down but I think that they can manage better than children.

Martin Ilves

European Parliament Elections

Elections for European Parliament are taking place on June 4. – June 7. 2009. Many Estonian citizens are not sure, are they going to vote for the European Parliament. There are many reasons, why people do not do that, they are not familiar with these elections, they do not know about them, they are not interested, or they do not get much information about these elections. Also they may think, that their vote may not change anything. Most certainly, that kind of thinking is not right and all citizens should go to vote, and be the decider. In the European Parliament web-site, there are ten efficacious reasons, why vote on the European Parliament elections. Firstly, when you vote, you are the decider. You have the opportunity to decide the everyday life and future of more than 500 million european. Secondly, you make your voice heard. The member in European Parliament is the voice of yours, and it is important, that you make sure that your voice is heard. Thirdly, Parliament is interested of your well- being, so make sure, that you care about your well- being too. Of course the list goes on, for the more information, go to the European Parliament web- side, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/elections2009/default.htm?language=ET

European Parliament have been decided to call youth to vote through social media. There are special accounts, that are mostly ment for youth. They are offering suitable materials and opportunitys for youth, to get the necessary information. The main message, that this account in sending out is the influential importance and also they are reminding the dates that the elections are taking place. They have the account for example on the facebook http://www.facebook.com/europeanparliament , MySpace. Also they are planning to open a Internet campaign for the European Parliament elections. I think that it is very good idea, to open accounts on the different Internet web- sites. Because, young people are spending more time on the Internet, than for example reading newspapers. Also young people search more information on the Internet. So I find that this could be very successful and young people are thinking now more on the European Parliament elections, and they are more interested about them, because the information they need is much more available for them.

So do not thing twice, go to vote and make your voice heard in Europe.

Merilin Kaalma 

Estonian Government Crisis..

       Estonian Government is not in a very good place right now, as there are a lot of problematic discussions on the topic of balancing the expenses and profits of Estonia. As the local elections in October, as well as European elections, are coming up, a lot of politicians see it is a good chance to make them selves seem as good for the Nation as they can, and make others look bad. The opposition party’s, especially Keskerakond, are putting a lot of effort to it. Their goal is to make Reformierakond, who is doing their best to cut as many expenses they can, to save Estonia, look like they are trying to ruin the nation. They are trying to push the Government to crisis, to try to get to power.

       As Mart Laar has said: “Pushing Estonian Government into crisis will not help to create now jobs and keep the present ones.” He toned, in an interview in Äripäev, that at the moment, what Kerserakond is trying to do, is wrong, the Government should put all their efforts into trying to balance the national budget and creating new jobs. (http://www.ap3.ee/Default2.aspx?ArticleID=24239183-a39d-41c2-b0e6-8188b71a008f&ref=rss#continue). And up until now, Estonia has managed to be just one of the few countries in Europe, which is not in debt, but manages to cut expenses to say balanced.

      Luckily, Keskerakond’s plan to declare mistrust to Reformierakond, failed, in my opinion, because the rest of the politicians understood, that it would do nothing but bad to Estonia. Politologist Anu Toots said in an interview given to Postimees on May fifth, (http://www.postimees.ee/?id=115748), that the distrust will probably not go through, as most of the GOvernement and Estonian politicians support Reformierakond and the Social Democrats, and because of that wont go along with it. She said that maybe Keskerakond, will see, that the Government is doing their job well, as the social democrats have a new tax reform, and boths party’s are on the left side. But this did not happen, probably because of what she already said – personal relations, not similar views are what count in Estonian politics.

      So, to sum up, it is in the nations best interest, that the Mistrust did not go through, as the Government has a lot on their minds already. And maybe Anu Toots was right when saying: “Probably, as the Euro Parliament elections are coming up soon, Keskerakod was just trying to keep themselves on the map and in the publics mind. They are very experienced politicians and probably knew, that the mistrust would not go through in these conditions.”

 

Kristiina Viil

The Importance of Politics/Elections

The reason why I have chosen just this topic is the fact that I have never been related to politics and I have really never cared about it. My aim is to show how important is politics in our daily lives.
The activeness of selectionists have been 60% of the population during last years. It isn’t the worse number afterall, but it’s pretty sad to think that only a little bit more than 50% of Estonians are in charge of our future. Very small part of this 60% are university students, who should care the most about their future and their children, they should care more about their friends and relatives. It is wrong to think that our opinion doesn’t matter, because we are the ones who are the hope of our future.

The road we drive, the busses we use, the house we are going to school, the way how our school looks like, the parks we are using to take a walk – these are just few examples, but EVERYTHING is influenced by our government, by the people WE have or have not chosen to make important decisions related to our daily life. It’s completely wrong to think that elections do not make any difference. Even though some of us do not care about daily politics news, it is important to give your vote.

Grethel Gahler.

E-voting test for European parliamentary elections

Estonians taste buds are tickled by an e-voting test for European parliamentary elections offering them joke candidates such as the lonely hamburger and tiramisu.  The aim is to promote June 4-7 elections to the European Parliament, especially among young people.

Estonia's electoral committee hopes the test poll (available on the www.valimised.ee webpage from May 28 to June 3) will also bring out any possible errors in the new online voting system.

Online voters can change their vote as many times as they want up until the deadline but only their final vote will count.  If an e-voter also votes on paper at a polling station their electronic vote will be canceled.

Kaido Matson

Ansip’s assetless state

Edgar Savisaar accuses Andrus Ansip’s Reform Party in creating an assetless state, where the state merely exists in the internet environment (e-elections, e-state, e-police, e-military) and all the state assets are sold to a higher bidder.  Savisaar draws the attention to already sold state assets like Estonian Air, Estonian Post, Tallinn Port, Estonian Railways and Tallinn Airport. Now, the time has come for the Estonian Lottery and pollution quotas in order to reduce the 8% state budget cut.

In one hand these kind of accusations are a healthy part of political debate, especially before the upcoming local elections this October. Or it can just be passed as Central Party’s attempt to gain more votes in the upcoming elections.  On the other hand it is good to note that Ansip has already raised the taxes to the highest of the last 10 years in order to save the state from total crisis. Also it is not correct to see e-elections as way of forgery. It is probably even easier to forge the paper elections than the e-elections. Although there are many mistakes to draw from the work of coalition, this accusation seems to show the ill-will of Savisaar himself.

Kaido Matson

Mellowed law proposal reduces the salary of all the public officials.

According to the article from this weeks Postimees. Estonian Ministry of Justice Rein Lang confirmed on the government press conference that he gave a law proposal to the ring of agree. The proposal is that all who are working for the government from the government’s secretary to president included fireman, policeman, teachers and other workers, are going to get a less many salary from the first of July. Because they think that this is the one solution to decrease the economical crisis.I think that that’s not fair. Most of the politicians should get less salary for their work but not teachers and policeman’s etc. Because I think that we have already too less fireman and police workers. Many of the schools are quite in trouble to find teachers. But why is this, this is because nobody wants to be a teacher and work for nothing. The politicians should decrease their salary but not the salary of a people who really are working.


Martin Ilves

The Commission has created three districts of the administrative reform

Last week, the Committee of Constitutional Affairs, gave into a process two different suggestions, how to arrange local elections and also a draft act for losing parts of the town, detach them from the law, that President disallow. 

According to the bylaw, city council can not lose city parts or boroughs or change their area in the local elections year. Another draft that changes the laws of local elections is about arranging the elections and it says, that Tallinn has and will have eight electional districts, but if there are no specific parts of Tallinn the electional districts will be based on the areas and electional boarders from previous local elections. Tallinn therefore would have in elections held in October only Haabersti, Kristiine, Kesklinna, Lasnamäe, Nõmme, Mustamäe, Tallinn, North-Tallinn's constituency. In the event that a municipality or city Tallinn decide to join, it represents a separate elections district. 

I don't think that this will effect the up coming elections, because, people can now decide, who will have power in their city district. I think, that people are much more satisfied with the results, they know, that right people have power over their city district, they can be sure, that people, they have elected are aware of the situation in their city district. 

Merilin Kaalma

Ansip's Decisions

There has been a lot of talk about the dramatic decisions Andrus Ansip has made in the past few weeks. But is he doing the right things? The first thing that made the people furious with him was the fact that he decided to froze the second pension column. The second thing is that he is raising the payments for the unemployment office. But are these things just mistakes Ansip has made or really inescapable moves? In my opinion, and from interviews I have red, it seems like

 there is no other way than to take money from these extremely important sources. And as the economists have said, there are many more cutbacks to come, so there really is no other 'nicer' way to save our country from bankruptcy. There is another chance, though. But according to Ansip it is not happening any time soon, at least not when he is still a Prime Minister. It is to raise the taxes, but it is the worst thing that can happen to Estonian tax payers, as they already have hard time with their payments. But as the Estonian President said in "Maaleht", now is not the time for politicians to tightly hold on to their views. But Ansip said, he will not go so far from his views, to raise taxes, even though countries like Latvia have already done it. A thing that will also probably help to prove our situation is the Euro. But at the moment there is a big chance that we will not get it by this year. But according to Ansip, it is not his primary goal, and he will definitely not sacrifice his place for it. So, at the moment, there is nothing more to do to wait and see, if the decrease of the economy will be bigger or smaller, and what else our government will have to sacrifice. And at the moment, we should not hate Ansip for everything he does, but think, if it is really his stupidness or just inescapable circumstances.

Kristiina Viil

Electional Advertising

So, as we all know, the elections are coming, and as always, the politicians are advertising themselves. But as Estonia is not in a very good place right now, the advertisements are in some ways different this time. Reformierakond's advertisements are not so different, they promise a better future, as usual. But Keskerakond has done something quite different, and somewhat unethical. First of all, their main message is "Vahetus" - "Change" or "Exchange". To me it reminds a electional campaign made just recently by the worlds most powerful politician - Barack Obama! Their aim with this might be to seem secure and confident, they are trying to show that they too can do what the President of the United States does. The other thing that is quite unethical, but unfortunately not unusual, is the fact that they are slandering Reformierakond's and IRL's messages. Everywhere in Tallinn, there are ads on garbage bins, that the rival party's ides and messages belong to history's trash can. And also, that Reformierakond's and IRL's politics is economic crisis. But what are they trying to show with this? In my opinion, all that comes through with these advertisements, is that they do not have any printworthy and valuable ideas of their own, so they have to just blacken others. 

Kristiina Viil

Rush with the Administrative Reform

The fact that the Administrative Reform was written in the Gender Equality Bill leaves room to doubt whether Riigikogu tried to pass it in a hurry with the second reading, instead of letting it settle and be debated over before the third reading of the bills. Also to digest through and pass a bill separately would have taken longer time, than passing it just as an additional extension to the Gender Equality Bill.

Kaido Matson

President vetoed Riigikogu's decision

Yesterday, Estonian President vetoed the Riigikogu's decision that Tallinn's administrative reform could not be done before the elections. So all parts of Tallinn will be united. Soon we will see if it will do good or bad to our city. 

Truth Revealed!

According to Postimees, the representative of Keskerakond in Riigikogu, Ain Seppik finally admitted what a lot of people had thought before: The main aim of the administrative reform was to ensure their power in Tallinn. The aim was never to help Tallinn, increase the profit, just the party's welfare. 

Pros and Cons of Administrative Reform

*Pros

It will increase Tallinn's profit 6% per year

More efficient management of the town

Less bureaucracy

*Cons

Problems of different parts of Tallinn are very different and they can not be taken as one, for example Lasnamäe does not share same problems as Nõmme

The maintenance of smaller streets and the yards of story buildings will probably left without attention

People can not elect politicians who they want to represent and run their part of the city

We also hope some readers feedback: Are you for or against uniting Tallinn?

Polemics have settled down for now

The discussions, whether Tallinn should loose all its parts or not, has finally settle down. But not for long, although Tallinn's city council took on the proposal to unite all parts of Tallinn, ten minutes later Riigikogu took on the proposal that forbid to unite parts of Tallinn. For the excuse they brought that this could not be done this year, due to the fact that municipal elections are taking place soon. This would exclude the possibility that this is done only to guarantee Keskerakond's success in the upcoming elections. Keskerakond did not agree with this kind of decision and decided to sue Riigikogu, because they think that only Tallinn's City council has the right to decide over these things. 

In our opinion Riigikogu did the right thing. Because if they still decide to take on the proposal next year, it is done for the right reasons, to improve Tallinn, not for Keskerakond's own welfare.