Prime Minister Taavi Rõivas: More people from the Russian minority needed in Estonian politics

Estonia’s Prime Minister Taavi Rõivas said in an interview with Eesti Päevaleht today that he would like to see more people from the Estonian Russian-speaking ethnic minority in the Estonian government and parliament.

"We have one cabinet member who is from the Russian minority, but I would like to see more people from the Russian-speaking population taking part of Estonian politics and becoming members of parliament, as well as the government," Rõivas said, commenting on a need to win hearts and minds of the Estonian Russian ethnic minority.
Earlier in the year, Jevgeni Ossinovski, the 28-year-old education and research minister, became the first member of the Russian-speaking minority to join the Estonian government in the past 12 years. There are 320,000 people with Russian ethnicity in Estonia, making up about 25% of the total population.