Kook made his remarks on the same day Emor's freshly released monthly party support rating put Reform at 10 percent, an all-time low at least so far as this century goes.

The Reform-Eesti 200 coalition rated at 12 percent in the same survey, again a record low.

Is such a low rating for the government simply extraordinary, or extraordinarily bad from the perspective of the state?

From the perspective of the state, you cannot say it is bad, as to do so would be to conflate the state with the government. Attempts are occasionally made to do just that, implying that if you are not on the government's side, then you are somehow anti-state. From the standpoint of governing the country, a low approval rating can be bad if it causes politicians to panic and make rash decisions in the hope that their ratings will then quickly rise, or those of their rivals will fall. A low rating is always bad as it undermines confidence.

So what are we seeing then? Are we seeing this kind of panicked behavior? What is happening in the world has certainly affected the support for the Reform Party, but really to such an extent that it has fallen to 10 percent?

The current situation in Estonia reminds me of something written by Britain's former prime minister Tony Blair, whose own political career was something of a roller coaster. He expressed roughly the following idea: oppositions do not win elections because of their own strengths; rather, coalitions and governments lose them because of their own poor decisions. If we look at Estonia now, the popular opposition parties are not presenting any major new ideas. Instead, they are mainly stating that they would not do what the current government is doing, and that on its own has helped them maintain very high ratings.

The government has also had some bad luck — for example, the Reform Party's major tax cut at the beginning of the year coincided with a period when prices overall were rising, so they did not achieve the expected political gains. On the other hand, the very same Tony Blair also put forward another interesting idea: every government goes through periods of rise and fall. At a certain point, when the decline becomes severe, the public no longer evaluates individual decisions based on whether they are good or bad, but instead projects a generally negative image onto all the decisions. No matter what you do, everything is seen as bad, and this keeps replicating itself. A paradoxical situation can emerge where a representative of an opposition party says exactly the same thing and is praised for speaking wisely and acting like a truly responsible statesman. But when a representative of the governing coalition says that same thing, people respond by saying: "There they go again, trying to burden the people and to make life worse for us." In some ways, we are in a similar situation here, right now.

There are two partners in the government: Eesti 200, with its 2 percent rating, seems to have been almost written off, but looking toward the elections: will those support figures — 10 and 2 percent — stay where they are, or is there still hope for them to rise?

I think the support for the Reform Party will definitely not stay at 10 percent. It will recover somewhat, though probably not enough for them to contend seriously for electoral victory. As for Eesti 200, the situation is more complex, in my opinion. With trust-based support and ratings like these, it is very easy to lose support, but very difficult to regain it.

At the same time, nothing is beyond hope. I would simply remind people that at the end of 2018, Isamaa's rating was 4.6 percent in one poll conducted by Kantar Emor. By the end of 2023, however, Isamaa had risen to top place in the polls, for the first time, with support exceeding 20 percent. It took five years, and they also had a leadership change, yet during that time they managed to rise from below the electoral threshold to become the most supported party.

There has also been speculation that the current government may not survive until the elections. What is your view?

I think it will survive. There are two very simple reasons for this: first, there are only nine months left until the elections. Second, I do not see anyone who would be especially eager to enter the government right now or who that would be beneficial for. Isamaa does not need it, nor do the Social Democrats, nor the Center Party. The Conservative People's Party of Estonia would probably not be invited to join, and they have also become so small that they could no longer form a majority.

I think the current coalition will one way or another continue until the elections. Whether with exactly the same number of members — perhaps even as a minority government — it will nevertheless limp home until election day.

The Riigikogu election takes place in March 2027.

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