Ott Ummelas, Bloomberg.com Estonia’s opposition Social Democratic Party has agreed to merge with the Russian Party in Estonia, which vows to protect the rights of the country’s Russian-speaking minority.
A merger agreement, which will keep the name of the Social Democratic Party unchanged, will be signed January 12 by the chairmen of both parties, the Social Democrats said in a statement on their website on January 11. The agreement has to be formally approved at general meetings of both parties, it said.
Estonia’s Russian minority makes up almost 30 percent of the 1.3 million inhabitants of the Baltic nation. The Russian Party won 0.9 percent of the vote in the last parliamentary elections in March 2011, below the electoral threshold of 5 percent.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/... 