上周日在位于巴爾干半島的愛沙尼亞議會選舉中，中間偏右翼政黨改革黨贏得29.4%的選票。若能成功組建聯合政府，改革黨黨首卡婭·卡拉斯將成為愛沙尼亞歷史上第一位女總理。

此次大選中，愛沙尼亞執政黨中間黨支持率排名第二，得票23.1%，極右翼的保守人民黨獲得17.8%的選票，得票為上次選舉的兩倍。根據此前的民調，中間偏左的中間黨本有望獲勝，卻被擁有親商平臺的改革黨力壓一頭。改革黨和中間黨均傾向歐盟，自1991年愛沙尼亞從蘇聯獨立以來，兩黨一直輪流執政。

卡婭·卡拉斯現年41歲，是一名律師，專攻數字領域的案件。她曾任歐洲議會的議員。現在改革黨的任務是跟其他黨派磋商組成聯合政府。卡婭的父親西姆·卡拉斯曾任愛沙尼亞第14任總理，也曾擔任歐盟委員會委員。克爾斯季·卡柳萊德是愛沙尼亞第一位女總統，2016年上任，不過總統一職只具象征意義，并沒有多少實權。

In last Sunday’s parliamentary election in Estonia, the center-right Reform party won 29.4% of the vote, setting up its leader Kaja Kallas to become the first female prime minister of the Baltic country, so long as she can form a coalition government.

Estonia’s ruling Centre party took second place with 23.1%, and the far-right Estonian Conservative People’s Party took 17.8% of the vote, double its last showing. The center-left Centre party had been expected to win based on polling, but the Reform party, which has a pro-business platform, pulled ahead. The Reform and Centre parties, both pro-EU, have alternated in power since Estonia’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

Kallas, a 41-year-old lawyer and a former member of the EU Parliament who specialized on digital issues, and the Reform party now must negotiate with other parties to create a government coalition. Her father, Siim Kallas, was the 14th Estonian prime minister and was an EU commissioner. Estonia’s first female president, Kersti Kaljulaid, has been in office since 2016, though the role is largely ceremonial.

愛沙尼亞是個彈丸小國，但在進軍數字領域方面極為激進。其地理位置夾在俄羅斯和拉脫維亞中間，僅有130萬人口。借助積極的互聯網經濟思維，愛沙尼亞已經成為全球電子政務領域的佼佼者。2000年，愛沙尼亞成為全球首個宣稱上網屬于基本民權的國家。同年通過法律，認定數字簽名與手寫簽名具有相同合法的地位。已被微軟收購的即時通訊軟件Skype就在愛沙尼亞問世。總部設在倫敦的轉賬匯款服務商TransferWise也在愛沙尼亞創立。愛沙尼亞人從2005年起便可以在網上參與選舉投票。英國廣播公司（BBC）報道稱，上周日的大選期間，愛沙尼亞全國88.1萬合格選民有將近四分之一都在網上投票，稅務、公共支出和歐盟成員國身份是選民最關心的問題。

卡拉斯競選時承諾，將采取減稅和下調失業保險保費等措施，目標是創造更多就業。贏得大選后幾小時內，她又承諾考慮聯合其他四大政黨中的三個黨派，排除了與極右翼保守人民黨合作的可能，稱“不會考慮”。（財富中文網）

Estonia is a little country with a big digital footprint. Nestled next to Russia and Latvia with 1.3 million residents, Estonia‘s progressive thinking about the Internet economy has made it a leader in e-government. In 2000, it became the first country in the world to declare Internet access a basic human right; that same year it passed a law giving digital signatures equal weight to handwritten ones. Skype, now owned by Microsoft, was created in Estonia. And money service TransferWise was founded by Estonians based in London. Estonians have been able to vote online since 2005. The BBC reports nearly a quarter of Estonia’s 881,000 eligible voters used e-voting in last Sunday’s election, in which issues like taxes, public spending, and EU membership were top of mind.

On the campaign trail, Kallas promised to cut taxes and unemployment insurance premiums, with the aim of creating jobs. In the hours since winning the election, she’s vowed to consider allying with three of Estonia’s four other parties; she’s ruled out working with the far-right Conservative People’s party, calling it “not a choice for us.”