Pevkur says government change requires no-confidence vote

Estonian Defence Minister and Reform Party deputy chairman Hanno Pevkur told ERR after a meeting of the prime minister’s party that the coalition would continue working and that anyone seeking to replace it should file a no-confidence motion.

Commenting on the departures of Kalev Stoicescu and Meelis Kiili, Pevkur said the coalition had already spent about a year ensuring it could assemble enough votes on various issues, so the resignations would not change much.

However, the coalition’s official support in the 101-seat Riigikogu has fallen from 52 votes to 50. Pevkur said the situation would have to be reviewed before every vote, with support sought especially from so-called “window-seat” MPs outside the coalition.

“You do not always need 51 votes; a simple majority is enough,” Pevkur said, adding that Stoicescu was still broadly aligned with the coalition.

Pevkur also said that, although the decision was not his to make, he would like Stoicescu to continue as chairman of the Riigikogu’s National Defence Committee after leaving Eesti 200.

“I think that has not been ruled out. When Marko Mihkelson left Res Publica, he was able to continue as chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. But it depends primarily on Eesti 200 and the National Defence Committee,” Pevkur said.

Stoicescu announced on Sunday that he was leaving Eesti 200, while Kiili said on Monday that he was leaving the Reform Party. Their departures left the governing coalition with 50 seats, putting it in a minority in the 101-member Riigikogu.

Minority governments are not unprecedented in Estonia. A government formed on the basis of Mart Siimann’s Coalition Party and Rural Union was in office from March 17, 1997, to March 25, 1999.

Estonia also had a minority government in 2009, when Prime Minister Andrus Ansip’s government removed the Social Democrats from the cabinet. The Reform Party and IRL then continued as a two-party government until the 2011 parliamentary elections.