Andrus Ansip's cabinet

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Estonia
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Andrus Ansip is the current Prime Minister of Estonia, his cabinet took office on April 12, 2005 after being approved by Riigikogu by 53 members out of 101. His cabinet was formed with pragmatic calculations, as it consists of ministers from free market liberal Reform Party of Estonia, populist and personalist Estonian Centre Party and agrarian People's Union of Estonia. Reform Party and People's Union had participated in the previous government lead by Juhan Parts (of conservative Res Publica).

Parts resigned on March 24, 2005 after his Minister of Interior Ken-Marti Vaher (also members of Res Publica) was sacked by Riigikogu. Reasons for the collapse of Parts' government were disagreements between Prime minister's party and Estonian Reform Party. In the beginning of the year 2005 there was wide support in Res Publica for unification of the two biggest right-wing parties, so Res Publica felt deceived when the new Reform Party leader Andrus Ansip openly rejected this plan, that had been approved by previous Reform Party leader Siim Kallas only a couple of months before. Tensions between two government partners rose when Juhan Parts sacked the Foreign Minister Kristina Ojuland (Reform Party) without having previously consulted with his government partners. The dismissal of K-M. Vaher a couple of weeks later and the resignation of the whole cabinet was seen by many as a sort of revenge by Reform Party.

The now incumbent government coalition was formed after quite intense negotiations. At first, there were speculations of so-called Rainbow coalition of those parties that voted had for the impeachment of K.-M.Vaher (namely Reform Party, People's Union, Social Democratic Party (Estonia), Fatherland Union and Social liberals) but the idea was soon disapproved by Reform Party's leadership because most probably such a coalition would have been quit unstable as it would have consisted of Reform Party plus 4 minor groupings. It was also mathematically possible to form a pure right-wing coalition of Reform Party, Res Publica and Fatherland Union but it never realised due to animosity between party leaders in the right-wing camp.

Thus, it didn't come out as entirely surprising when Reform Party arranged a deal with its long time political opponent Centre Party, with whom it had, however, governed together from 2002 to 2003 in a quite stabile coalition. People's Union was included as it had already been governing for 2 years and was willing to continue in power, consequently it didn't demand too much from their parters.

The current cabinet was approved by the Riigikogu on 12 April 2005.

Most of the government agenda - lowering taxes (demanded by Reform Party), raising pensions (Centre Party) etc. - have been surprisingly unanimously implemented by the governing coalition. However, the 2006 presidential election probably provoked some tension, albeit both Reform Party (supported Toomas Hendrik Ilves) and CP-PU (Arnold Rüütel) side have stated, that the coalition will endure as long as the coalition agreement is being followed. After Ilves' victory, Edgar Savisaar and PU leader Villu Reiljan have expressed sharp criticism on their election-time opponents, leading some opposition politicians suggest Reform Party ending up the coalition and continuing with a minority government supported by Ilves' side (i.e SDE, PPU, Res publica) which has been in the opposition so far.