Kaja Kallas to be the first female Prime Minister in a Baltic nation

Estonia’s two biggest political parties held a deal on Sunday to form a new government to be led by a female prime minister for the first time in the Baltic country’s history, following the previous Cabinet that collapsed into a bribery scandal first this month.

The party councils of the opposition, center-right Reform Party, and the ruling left-leaning Centre Party voted in favor of joining a Cabinet directed by Reform’s prime minister-designate and chairwoman Kaja Kallas.

Both parties are planning to have seven ministerial portfolios in addition to Kallas' prime minister post in the 15-member government, which would also muster a majority at the 101-seat Riigikogu Parliament.

A joint statement said in the Reform Party and the Centre Party, “We will form a government that will also proceed to immediately and effectively resolve the COVID-19 crisis, keep Estonia forward-looking and improve all areas and areas of our country.”

Earlier this month, President Kersti Kaljulaid, who is also expected to appoint Kallas’ Cabinet in the next few days, said taking Estonia’s worsening coronavirus state and the economic turmoil caused by the pandemic should be an immediate advantage for the new administration.

Kaljulaid, Estonia's first female leader of state since 2016, tasked Kallas to see government as her pro-business and pro-entrepreneurship Reform Party began as the winner of Estonia’s March 2019 general election.

Pending favor from lawmakers, Kallas, 43, will display the first female head of government in the history of the short Baltic nation of 1.3 million, which regained its balance amid the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.