Government hopes for reelection in boom-bust-boom Estonia

Estonians voted in a general election Sunday. The centre-right government hopes to win a new mandate after leading the country out of a sharp recession.

AFP/Raigo Pajula

Opinion polls gave the two-party coalition of Prime Minister Andrus Ansip a clear lead over the left-leaning opposition.

Ansip has been at the helm as the nation of 1.3 million swung from boom to bust and back again.

Estonia's economy shrank by over 14 per cent in 2009 - one of the world's deepest recessions - before expanding by 3.1 per cent in 2010. This year it is expected to grow by about four per cent.

The government responded to the slump with a huge cut in public spending.

The opposition accuses Ansip of glossing over social problems such as unemployment, which jumped from a record low of four per cent on the eve of the crisis to a post-independence high of almost 20 per cent in early 2010.

But it has fallen amid the recovery – back down to 10.3 per cent last week.

A key aim of the austerity drive was to ensure that Estonia met financial criteria for adopting the euro, which it did on 1 January this year.