The Center Party is on the rise, the Reform Party is faltering and Eesti 200 faces the very real threat of vanishing altogether. That's what the latest polling numbers suggest as the upcoming local elections draw near.

Beyond the usual jockeying for position between political parties, there's much more that deserves our attention — chiefly, just how unprecedented and unusual these elections are in the context of Estonia's recent political history.

Four main factors make these local elections unprecedented: a reshaped electorate, the floundering popularity of the governing parties, a strong temptation to focus on national rather than local issues and finally — since all eyes will once again be on the capital — the impossibility and futility of forming an anti-Center Party alliance in Tallinn. Let's take a look at each in turn.

Citizens of Russia and Belarus are no longer eligible to vote in these elections, and this restriction has reduced the potential electorate by nearly 7 percent (only Estonian and EU citizens can vote in local elections starting in 2025 – ed). In Sillamäe, for example, nearly 43 percent of those who previously had the right to vote can no longer do so, while the corresponding figure is 36 percent in Narva and 15 percent in Tallinn's Lasnamäe district.

The impact of this shift on local politics may not be immediately obvious — it will likely take a few election cycles to fully manifest. However, the most noticeable and immediate effect is this: no matter how popular the Center Party remains in Tallinn, it is now highly unlikely to ever again win an outright majority on the city council. If it does manage to pull that off, it would only be thanks to an especially favorable political climate and high mobilization of Estonian-speaking voters.

At the moment, it's not just the Center Party that seems to have the wind at its back — the same could be said of opposition parties in general. In that sense, it's truly unprecedented how weakly positioned the governing parties are heading into these local elections.

Yes, local elections typically take place midterm, when support for ruling parties — especially the Reform Party — isn't at its peak. But can we point to any moment in the past couple of decades when the prime minister's party was trailing nearly all parliamentary opposition parties and its coalition partner had fallen completely below the electoral threshold? The last time the Reform Party went into local elections with polling numbers hovering around 10 percent was sometime back in the 1990s.

The ruling parties' weakness and unpopularity have prompted the opposition to capitalize on the moment, spicing up their campaigns with national-level issues rather than sticking to local concerns. In a so-called "normal" situation — where the economy was relatively stable and the government's approval ratings were within a typical range — even the opposition would struggle to manufacture intrigue and would focus on local life and the strength of their candidates. But now, with several opposition parties opting for campaign strategies centered on national themes, the ruling parties are forced to respond in kind.

In short, the temptation to win voters over with topics that fall well outside the scope of municipal government — such as macroeconomics, taxes and national defense — is especially strong this time around.

Inevitably, the local election battles that receive the most attention will be those in the capital. And for the first time in the past 20 years, the notion of forming a broad anti-Center Party coalition in Tallinn is no longer even remotely credible. Put bluntly: it's a non-starter.

That kind of coalition has been attempted once already and the participants didn't walk away with glowing memories. More to the point, it failed to meet the expectations that many Tallinn residents had placed on it. Why else would the Center Party's support currently tower above all others?

If a party — particularly a liberal one — goes to voters with the message: "Come to the polls and after the election we'll form a four- or five-party alliance against Mihhail Kõlvart," then it's fair to ask them point blank: is a coalition with EKRE really a better alternative to Kõlvart's city government?

All in all, these will be truly unprecedented local elections in the context of Estonia's recent political history — marked by several extraordinary features we've never seen before. Whether they also signal the beginning of larger tectonic shifts on the country's political landscape is something we'll only know in time.

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