Isamaa


Isamaa is a national-conservative, Christian-democratic political party in Estonia. It was founded on 4 June 2006 by the merger of two conservative parties, Pro Patria Union and Res Publica Party. Up to the 2007 parliamentary elections, the party held 32 seats out of 101 in the Riigikogu and one of Estonia's six seats in the European Parliament. The party is a member of the European People's Party. It has about 8,500 members. The merged party consisted of two separate boards and two party leaders, which was replaced by a unified board and leader in May 2007. The party's prime minister candidate was Mart Laar, who became a chairman of the party. The party, which is economically liberal, is usually placed on centre-right to right-wing of the left–right political spectrum.
Isamaa held the name Pro Patria and Res Publica Union until June 2018, when the party changed its name to Isamaa, meaning literally "Fatherland".

History

Pre-foundation

Prior to the merger, there was an extreme drop in public support for Res Publica after the government led by Juhan Parts was forced to step down, and Pro Patria had also been relatively marginalized after the fall of their own governing coalition. There was also concern among conservatives about splitting the vote between two parties with largely similar ideologies and being unable to oppose the much more cohesive left wing electorate, which was mostly rallied behind the Centre Party. On 4 April 2006, representatives from the Pro Patria Union and Res Publica decided to merge the two parties, which took place officially on 4 June 2006. Although originally the name For Estonia was considered for the newly formed party, it was rejected, and the provisional name was used until the new name was adopted in 2018..
On 15 November 2006 the parties were officially merged as Pro Patria and Res Publica Union.

2015–

In 2015 parliamentary election, IRL lost 9 seats and managed to keep 14. It joined the Reform Party and Social Democrats to form the government under Taavi Rõivas. As the Pro Patria and Res Publica Union was the biggest loser in the elections, chairman Urmas Reinsalu announced he would resign as party chairman after the party's congress in June 2015. On 6 June 2015, he was replaced by Margus Tsahkna.
On 7 November 2016, the SDE and IRL announced that they were asking Prime Minister Taavi Rõivas to resign and were planning on negotiating a new majority government. In the following coalition talks Center Party, SDE and IRL formed a new coalition led by the Centre Party's chairman, Jüri Ratas. The new coalition was sworn in on 23 November. In April 2017, Tsahkna announced that he would not seek re-election as chairman. He was followed by Helir-Valdor Seeder on 13 May 2017. On 26 June 2017, Tsahkna and MP Marko Mihkelson announced that they were leaving the party, dropping the amount of IRL MPs to 12.

Electoral results

Parliamentary elections

European Parliament elections

Chairmen