Simson says Social Democrats are needed to balance future coalitions

Social Democrats should serve as a balancing force in future coalition talks, Kadri Simson said in an interview on ERR’s Esimene stuudio programme. Simson is running for the Social Democratic Party and said parties must accept that no single party can implement its entire programme.

“A coalition means that everyone contributes and makes compromises on some things,” she said. In her view, the Reform Party is held back by the belief that other parties should implement its programme.

Simson called Prime Minister Kristen Michal’s government a failure, saying it had damaged public confidence in the prospect of better politics. Asked why the Social Democrats were not seeking a vote of no confidence in Michal, she said it was easy to bring things down, while the elections were still months away.

A successful no-confidence vote would require forming an interim government, Simson said. She questioned whether all five parliamentary groups and MPs outside them could agree to work together as a united team.

The Social Democrats had the support of 15.4 percent in the latest poll, but Simson said polling five months before the elections did not determine the result. She also said voters who abstained because they believed no candidate deserved their vote were showing indifference, which she said was unacceptable in the current situation.

Simson said her political outlook had not changed since her time in the Centre Party. She recalled advocating for Estonia’s membership of the European Union in 2003 and said she no longer saw the Centre Party as strongly supportive of the bloc. She noted that it had joined a different group in the European Parliament.

Simson said other parties had also approached her, and that she had met with the Reform Party but knew she would turn down its offer. After repeated approaches from the Social Democrats, she decided to join them and run in Tartu. She said her five years of experience in the European Commission had given her insight into how countries represent their interests in the EU, and that Estonia needed that knowledge.