Key Insights:
The Estonian social media and web-based media actors during the reporting month predominantly were still focused on the Estonian/Russian language policy issues, human rights issues, democracy and trust towards elected officials, and war in Ukraine as well as the international security situation in general. Accordingly, the main narratives that were spread over the social media were the following:
- Kai Kallas’s reaction to the French President’s speech about Ukraine
- shutting down of some schools and loss of teachers jobs due to switching of language of instruction.
- New language requirements for non-teacher employees in schools
- new taxes on things such as cars and pensions
- Estonia being pushed by the west towards war with Russia.
- the misuse of the state funds by politicians for political advertising
- Kaya Kallas being unable to guarantee that Estonian soldiers will not be sent to Ukraine.
- Removal of the voting rights of Russians and Belorussians and changing of the constitution
- the economic state of Estonia and how the economic depression is a purposeful move by the government.
- After the Cold War NATO is now a useless treaty, and after 2022 it has become the reason for the rapid militarization of Europe.
- the new taxes on pensions and how this shows that the government is no longer a democracy
- change of language of instruction to Estonian, and how it is a tactic for humiliating those who do not speak Estonian fluently
Overview of findings:
- A total of 551 social media posts were monitored on Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo and Telegram channels.
- An Awario media monitoring tool reveals the remaining importance of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, “Ukraine” and “the war”, “USA” in Estonian media in Estonian and Russian languages (see graph above) scores near around 245 mentions. Data from the monitoring tool also shows that nearly a third (32.5%) of these items held a negative sentiment. That signals the easy usage of war for the spread of anti-Ukrainian and anti-government narratives which are related to the language policies as well.
- Awario has also revealed the notable reach of the same social media pieces (see the graph below) that includes mentions of Ukraine, the war and the language policies, especially beginning and end of the month, when the war in Israel began and introduction of the Estonian language in the schools was debated by the end of the month.
Story of the month: The government is pushing old people into poverty
In this opinion piece posted on MK Estonia the author writes about how he thinks that the government enforcing and billing more taxes, especially taxes on things such as pensions and taxes on people and things where it is not normal in other countries, means that the government has changed from democracy and no longer thinks of its own citizens. He also states that the decision to tax pensions directly violates the promises of the parties and the coalition agreements that they signed. He states that this is the opposite of what the Reform Party promised when they said they would raise the pensions to 1000 euros. He goes on to say that with the outright deception of voters, the government has obviously strayed away from being a democracy and has instead become an ochlocracy, which is a government that is a degenerated form of democracy characterised by transitional and crisis periods, revolutions, where demagoguery, tyranny of the majority and domination of passion prevail over reason.
The author goes on to say that this is not the first lie that the government has told. He claims that it started when Kaja Kallas was elected, promising not to raise taxes and then introducing a whole new tax bill. He claims that the government is continuing to lie now about the economic state of the country. He also claims that the change in the benefits given to large families before and after the election was a way to bribe voters.
“Before the elections, the Reform Party promised to increase the average pension to 1,000 euros but instead decided to get into the pockets of pensioners. Democracy, of course, is a complex thing, but it clearly does not involve such blatant deception of voters. This is no longer a democracy, but ochlocracy (ochlocracy is a degenerate form of democracy characteristic of transitional and crisis periods, revolutions, where demagoguery, the tyranny of the majority and the rule of passion prevail over reason. The term was introduced by Polybius, an ancient Greek historian, statesman and military leader), argues Chapligin.
He also states, that this is not the first deception of voters by the Reform Party. Shortly before the elections, Kaja Kallas promised Estonian people not to raise taxes, and immediately after the elections she introduced a whole package of bills to raise taxes into parliament. Estonian people are told that the economic situation of the state has changed. “But this is a lie since all the current problems took place before the elections”, claims the author.
He is unmasking the government as being not honest and decent as “an even more cynical deception of voters is the somersault with benefits for large families. The government of Kaja Kallas increased them a few months before the elections, and immediately after the elections reduced benefits by 200 euros”. Author offers, that “this behaviour cannot be called anything other than an attempt to bribe voters”.
Chapligin accuses the prime minister, Kaja Kallas, of tirelessly insisting that the increase in taxes and the introduction of new ones are caused by the state’s difficult financial situation and that economic decline is solely the fault of the current government.
Overall, this article supports the Kremlin’s narrative, that the Estonian government can not be trusted, facts are figures, which are the personal opinion of the author, are being offered as a final truth – only can blame in all the economic and financial hardships is your government and perhaps the fact, that you are obliged to pay the taxes.
