The center-right Reform Party won the parliamentary election in Estonia Sunday, but not enough seats to avoid having to form a coalition with one of its rivals.
Reform, led by former lawmaker Kaja Kallas, won 29 percent of the vote, followed by Prime Minister Juri Ratas' Center Party, which took 23 percent.
Reform had held the prime minister's chair from 2005 until 2016 -- sometimes by itself and sometimes in a coalition with the Center Party -- and they may have to team up again.
Reform backs a liberal economic policy while the Center Party has the support of Estonia's sizable Russian-speaking minority.
Both parties have sworn to keep the far-right anti-immigrant Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE) -- which won 18 percent Sunday -- out of a ruling coalition. EKRE more than doubled its number of seats.
Two other parties -- the Social Democrats and the conservative Isamaa Party -- also won seats Sunday.
In 2007, Estonia became one of the first nations in the world to be hit by a modern type of enemy assault that has since been dubbed cyberwarfare. The attack came from Russia.
Since the cyberattack, Estonia has evolved into what many consider the most technologically advanced country in the world.
Key to that effort is e-Estonia, a unique project that links government officials to all citizens through a maze of platforms based on the "X-Road," a government platform also used by major private companies.
Through the X-Road, citizens can participate in such activities as health care, banking, tax-paying, policing and education through a broadband or fiber optic network connecting the whole country. Legislators can digitally enact laws through a program called e-Cabinet, while citizens use e-voting to elect and communicate with politicians. And there is free Wi-Fi virtually everywhere.
Throughout most of its history, the Baltic nation of 1.3 million people has been dominated and exploited by larger neighbors. But now, analysts say, the e-Estonia project has helped put the nation's past behind it.
