Elections to the Supreme Soviet were held in the
Estonian SSR on 18 March 1990.
[ Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', p574 ] Altogether 392 candidates ran for the Soviet-style legislature's 105 seats, of which four were pre-allocated to the military districts of the Soviet Army. The pro-independence
Popular Front
A popular front is "any coalition of working-class and middle-class parties", including liberal and social democratic ones, "united for the defense of democratic forms" against "a presumed Fascist assault".
More generally, it is "a coalition ...
won the plurality (43 seats). The coalition of the reformed
Estonian communists, who favored independence but close relations with the USSR and were supported by
Indrek Toome
Indrek Toome (born 19 September 1943) is a former communist Estonian politician and businessman. He served from 1988 to 1990, and was the last Prime Minister (head of the Council of Ministers) of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic.
Early l ...
who was running under the Free Estonia banner, won 27 seats. The anti-independence, pro-Moscow "Joint Soviet of Work Collectives", representing mostly the ethnic Russian immigrant minority in Estonia, won 25 seats. During its first session, the new legislature elected the former
Communist Party
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...
member
Arnold Rüütel
Arnold Rüütel OIH () (born 10 May 1928) is an Estonian politician and agricultural scientist. He has served as the last chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR from 8 April 1983 to 29 March 1990, Chairman of the Su ...
as its chairman, allowing him to stay as the nominal leader of Estonia (real powers mostly lay with the prime minister).
The elected parliament made some of the most important decisions in the modern
Estonian history, such as the on 30 March 1990 declaration of a period of transition to restore full independence from the Soviet Union, and the 20 August 1991 declaration to confirm the restoration of the country's full independence.
Electoral system
Members of the Supreme Soviet were elected in 42 single-member or multi-member constituencies. In the former constituencies deputies were elected by
first-past-the-post
In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast thei ...
vote, while in the latter deputies were elected by
single transferable vote
Single transferable vote (STV) is a multi-winner electoral system in which voters cast a single vote in the form of a ranked-choice ballot. Voters have the option to rank candidates, and their vote may be transferred according to alternate ...
.
Eesti NSV / Eesti Vabariigi Ülemnõukogu XII koosseis. Eesti Rahvusraamatukogu, 29.03.1990–29.09.1992. Tallinn, 2013
/ref>
The local elections three months earlier, in December 1989, were also held under STV, and served as a dress rehearsalRein Taagepera
Rein Taagepera (born 28 February 1933) is an Estonian political scientist and former politician.
Education
Born in Tartu, Estonia, Taagepera fled from occupied Estonia in 1944. Taagepera graduated from high school in Marrakech, Morocco and the ...
, who penned articles in ''Edasi
''Edasi'' (Estonian: ''Forward'') was a newspaper published in Tartu, Estonia. The paper was published with this name between 1948 and 1994.
History and profile
The paper was the successor of ''Postimees'' of which the name was changed to ''Eda ...
'' in 1988, published ''Seats and Votes'' in 1989, and gave conferences on the topic. STV was not, however, Taagepera's own preference, but was rather the result of a consensus driven by Peet Kask between the outgoing Communist local officials, who sought a system that favored their popular names over their unpopular party brand, and the principle of proportional representation favored by the new parties.
Apportionment
The seats allocated were distributed as such:
Results
See also
* List of members of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Estonia, 1990–1992
References
{{Estonian elections
1990 in Estonia
Estonia
Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...
Parliamentary elections in Estonia
Election and referendum articles with incomplete results