TALLINN, March 6 (Xinhua) -- Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid Wednesday met separately with leaders of Estonia's five political parties elected to the 14th Estonian parliament Riigikogu.
Kaljulaid first met with Kaja Kallas, chairwoman of the election-winning Reform Party winning 34 seats out of the total 101 seats in the parliamentary election held on Sunday.
Then, the Estonian president met with Mart Helme, chairman of the Conservative People's Party of Estonia winning 19 seats, followed by Helir-Valdor Seeder, chairman of Isamaa/Pro Patria Party winning 12 seats, and Jevgeni Ossinovski, chairman of Social Democratic Party winning 10 seats.
Finally, Kaljulaid met with Juri Ratas, the incumbent Estonian Prime Minister and chairman of the Center Party winning 26 seats in the parliamentary election.
Later on Wednesday, Kallas said that the Reform Party board decided to propose launching coalition talks with the Center Party, which she termed as "easier", without predicting whether coalition talks with the Center Party will result in a deal, the Estonian Public Broadcasting Corporation reported.
Describing the Reform Party board decision to opt to launch talks with Center as an unanimous one, Kallas said that if Reform and Center were combined, the new coalition would represent the Estonian voters the most, which would mean a more stable government as well.
However, she also noted that the Reform Party has quite a lot in common with both Isamaa and the Social Democrats. The latter two small parties are in the current coalition with the Center Party, and was in the coalition with the Reform Party in 2015.
Led by Kallas, who earned 20,072 votes, the most votes of any single candidate, the Reform Party won 28.9 percent of votes cast, against the 23.1 percent for the Center Party, with the final voter turnout of 63.7 percent in the parliamentary election, said the State Electoral Office of Estonia after the second counting of the votes cast on Monday and Tuesday.
